What Came of Chance
by ShutUpAndPull
Summary: An entry for Castle Ficathon 2018: In this AU, you will meet Kate Beckett, a woman who long ago moved back to her small hometown to help care for her father, and you will meet Rick Castle, a famed mystery author at the lowest point in his career, and thanks to one arbitrary decision, they meet one another. Love ensues.
1. Chapter 1

_AN: I thought I could be through with this part of my Castle experience, but I found otherwise. Such is love. Patricia, thank you._

* * *

Richard Castle was not a man accustomed to professional failure. There'd been occasional missteps, certainly, stumbles along the path he'd forged to his position of acclaim in the world of mystery-writerdom, but he'd always managed to look back at the ground and laugh them off. That was until now.

Five weeks. His most recent contribution to the literary world had been in circulation for five weeks, and as he sat behind the screen of his laptop and scrolled through page after page of unabashed scorn for the words he'd poured his blood, sweat, and tears into, the ground now felt like it might swallow him whole.

"Richard, do we have any sunblock left out at the house?" he heard his mother's voice call from beyond his office walls. "Quelle nightmare it can be to try to cover up freckles."

He looked up just as she managed to squeeze across the threshold, sporting a green and orange kaftan and a sun hat the size of Rhode Island. "I'm pretty sure _no one_ on the beach will need sunblock if you're out there wearing that hat, Mother, and I don't think freckles are what you need to be worried about at your auditions." He clicked away from the website currently taunting him and found a hint of a smile with the sight of his daughter's face behind the minimized page.

"Hey, kiddo," Martha replied with the point of a finger, "you keep that rain cloud of yours away from my vacation, huh? I know you're going through a thing right now, but don't you take it out on me. I don't deserve that."

Rick pushed back from his desk and came around to her, his aim to offer a hug of apology thwarted by the expanse of her hat's brim. "You're right. I'm sorry," he said, prying up its flopped edge to reveal her face. "And I'm glad we're taking two cars out there. No way we'd all fit into one with this thing along for the ride," he teased.

"Wait until you see our luggage," Martha dropped in offhandedly. She tapped him playfully on the cheek and they shared a smile. "You mustn't pay attention to any of that, Richard," she followed in a tone alive with maternal poise. "Remember all you've accomplished and all the joy you've inspired. Nothing will ever change that or take that away. You wrote a beautiful book, one you and me and many others believe in, no matter how many copies are or aren't sold. Let's go and celebrate that."

"Thank you, Mother," Rick said after her, her words, though sincere and appreciated, quieting his mind little.

"Oh, and your divorce," she added on her way back out. "I saw the signed papers out on the counter. That surely deserves a toast. Or five."

He returned to his desk and to his laptop once she'd gone, but succeeded in quashing the urge to recall the website that seemed to exist simply to ridicule him. Instead, he pulled up the weather report for the Hamptons, for their annual kick-off-the-summer week, beginning with the Memorial Day holiday. It'd been their tradition for nearly a decade, and its arrival was more than welcome, given the hell of the last month. Sun across the board, he found staring back at him, and he inhaled a tiny breath of gratitude.

 **xxxx**

"Alexis!" Rick hollered through a yawn from the bottom of the stairs early the following morning, the morning of their exodus from the city. "Are you kidding with all of this?" he asked when she finally appeared on the landing. "Has this pile of bags actually grown since last night? How is that possible? You know how much I count on you to watch her."

"We are women, Richard," Martha jumped in approaching from the kitchen. In his morning fog, he didn't see her there preparing their coffee-one more thing to groan about, to be sure. "And as women, we enjoy having our things about us." She extended a mug in his direction, which he took from her most reluctantly.

"Sure, things I get, but _every_ thing? We're only going to be there for a week." He took a sip of the coffee without thought and instantly regretted it with a scowl. "And, um, to correct you, you're a woman. Alexis is a…" She came prancing down the stairs and he watched her the entire way, her expression one of daring curiosity.

"Alexis is a what, Dad? What am I?" She stood with folded arms at Martha's side, the pair a formidable estrogen duo, especially at that ungodly hour.

"Well, sweetie, you're an Alexis," Rick replied with an air of surety unbefitting his feeble answer. "And a daughter," he added with a second unconscious sip. "Honestly, can you take this away from me, please?" He pushed the mug back to a smirking Martha, who was firmly enjoying the hole her son was in the process of digging himself into.

"Get a grip, Dad. It's just a few bags for vacation. I'm not running away to Mexico." She pushed up onto her toes and kissed him on the cheek.

"Yes, darling, do get a grip, and a shower while you're at it, so we can get the heck of Dodge. Everyone's going to be on the road in a couple of hours and I loathe driving in traffic."

Rick looked at Martha sideways, after a firm squeeze of his eyes. "You never drive at all, Mother, let alone in traffic, which reminds me how thrilled I am to have you climbing behind the wheel of my very expensive and very new car. God, I need real coffee," he spoke under his breath as he shuffled away.

"Rain cloud, Richard, rain cloud," Martha poked. He raised his arm in acknowledgement but didn't turn back. "Our mission is clear, my dear," she said to Alexis, wrapping around her shoulders. "We need to make certain your father has some fun this week if it's the last thing we do."

"Yeah," Alexis agreed, but with an unspoken understanding of the mountain of a task they faced. "I need to go finish getting ready."

Martha released her and followed her back up the stairs. "Me, too. And I think I may have one more bag to grab."

"Gram," Alexis sighed.

 **xxxx**

His favorite glass lay empty on its side on the table next to an uncapped bottle, the television in the corner still chattered from the night before, and scattered lights remained illuminated about the place without rhyme or reason. Such was the familiar scene that awaited Kate as she stepped out of her bedroom that morning, a scene she'd grown unfortunately accustomed to, a scene she hated.

She never saw him in those moments, her father always closed in behind his bedroom door, and despite the fact that she often stopped home during her break at lunchtime, she knew she wouldn't see his face again until later that night. That was Kate Beckett's life-by much her own choice though she knew-since the accident years ago, when she nearly lost the one person she had left, and he lost himself. Again.

She tidied up what she could in the little time available to her before she needed to be at the job she never imagined she'd have, and scribbled the same note she always left for him with an _I love you_ and a smile. It was something her mother had always done, no matter how long she was to be gone, five minutes or five hours, and Kate did love him, however bogus the art that accompanied the words.

"Well, good morning, sunshine," Dot said in welcome as Kate stepped up to the counter at Smith's, the local diner. It was her regular stop on the way to the bookshop each day, their mediocre coffee ever her takeaway, along with its welcome dose of goodness, which often helped to fill her back up in the wake of earlier moments at home. "Today a medium or large kind of a day?"

Dot was every bit the years in her name, with her silver hair and her bowed shoulders, and she always treated Kate like family, like a granddaughter, for which Kate felt a tremendous amount of appreciation. There was never a day she could remember walking into the place without Dot's smile to greet her, and she'd missed that during her time away. She no longer took those warm feelings or those kindnesses for granted, not now, not with everything that'd been taken away from her.

"As big as you've got, this morning, Dot, thanks." She reached into the messenger bag hanging across her body-the one her mother had always carried-to grab her wallet, but she was waved off.

"It's on me today, sunshine. Just don't tell the rest of these vultures or they'll be all over me," she cautioned, though at a volume the other regulars perched along the counter couldn't possibly miss.

"I wouldn't dare," Kate said with a giggle, accepting the warm cup with a puckish glance at the men. "You going to be listening to the show tonight? Chapters ten and eleven. They're good ones."

"Eight o'clock like always. My ears'll be there," Dot assured her, and they always were.

She'd been doing it for a few years, once each week from the town's local radio station, reading classics aloud to the masses—or to those within its modest bandwidth, anyway—and she loved doing it. It didn't matter how many times she'd read or studied the stories before, sharing them with others brought her joy and provided her an escape when she needed it most.

Her intention had always been to teach them, as her mother had before, to enrich young minds with their themes and morals, but those plans had been hijacked by a universe that still hadn't revealed the reasons for its cruelty, but in all honesty, none Kate could conceive of could possibly ever soothe her, anyway.

First came the death of her mother at the hand of a cancer swift and savage, leaving her with a father who tried mightily to hold together the weave of their family for her sake, but who sought his own form of help from bottles that didn't know the meaning of the word. He'd managed to find his way out of that darkness over time, once, much to the credit of his daughter, but when the second wave hit, when the only intact world he knew then was blown apart, he tumbled back down the dark hole and hadn't yet climbed back out.

Kate was nineteen, away at school in the Midwest, when she received the call from her aunt that her father, a long-time officer with the NYPD, had been injured in a shooting on the job. They weren't life-threatening wounds, thankfully, but they were career-ending, and physically debilitating, and she left Northwestern without blinking an eye to see him through the aftermath. Seven years later, there she was, still.

"Well, there might be a quiz when I come in tomorrow morning, so tell that man of yours to keep the volume on the game down so you can pay good attention," Kate said playfully, Dot's husband, the proprietor of the place, within earshot. Gus looked up and tossed her a look and she smiled. "Thanks again for this, Dot," she said, raising the large cup. "Hope you enjoy tonight."

"I'm sure I will, sunshine. Always do. And you be sure to laugh today, you hear?" She prescribed it every morning, and Kate always tried to honor it.

Just down the block from the diner was where she now spent her days, watching over Whitman's Bookshop for its aged owners who'd owned it famously for nearly sixty years. No, it certainly wasn't the job she ever imagined she'd have, but, despite that, there was a respect and a love there for it, and it kept her close to all the pages and words she always hoped to fill her days with. She clung to that, reminded herself of it over and over again, because she knew if she didn't cling to something, she'd probably float away.

 **xxxx**

Rick arrived in Southampton before Martha and Alexis, not surprisingly, though they did have a bit of a head start out of the city. He parked the Ferrari in the garage and stepped inside the house after too long away, its familiar scent of linen and salt comforting in an instant. Walking from room to room, he slid up windows and pushed open doors to the sunlight, and he could already sense a shift inside of him, slight though it was, as a result of being in a place he so revered, a place that had only ever brought him pleasure and peace of mind. _Maybe_ , he thought as he stood looking out towards the ocean. _Just maybe_.

He'd just finished bringing inside the few things he was able to cram into the car when his phone chirped in his pocket. Assuming it was his mother or Alexis calling to break the news of some horror story involving them and the new Benz, he reached for it immediately, but it wasn't either-thankfully, sure. Instead, it was Paula, his literary agent, for the third time in as many days.

Paula was a piranha in a power suit, the quintessence of a forties dame who possessed the delicate touch of a mallet, and Rick adored her on both a professional and a personal level. She was born and raised in the borough, her accent and her attitude more Queens than even Queens, and when she had someone's back, they knew it, and her loyalty never wavered.

She most certainly had Rick's back, and she'd always worked her ass off for him, and though he believed that, he'd let two of her calls pass, already, the messages left behind but two words each: "It's me" and "Number two." Their brevity didn't concern him, though; she was always able to convey a lot with a little, and sharp was her customary way. He always imagined she'd make a fine editor, actually, if she wasn't so drawn to the brokering of it all, to the sounds of the dollars and cents. What had him in avoidance mode wasn't Paula at all, but rather the state of his own mind.

His book-his thirteenth book-the one out of all of them he was truly proud of, was five weeks out in the world, and the world wanted nothing to do with it. It seemed the surprise demise of one's fan-beloved righter of wrongs, one's time-and-again hero of a corrupt world, wasn't the lowest a successful mystery writer could go. No. Penning a novel that attempted to convey actual substance and depth and that didn't once involve a cliché phrase like _There's no time for_ _backup!_ was the apparent ultimate offense, and his heart-and, yes, his ego-was paying dearly for its failing.

Rick understood how the game worked; he'd been playing it for a long time, and the give-readers-what-they-want of it all was the playbook he'd always followed. It was the reason he was able to arrive at his house in the Hamptons, from his penthouse loft in Manhattan, in a Ferrari, and for any number of the other luxuries he and those he loved now enjoyed in life. But there came a day, one he recalled with great clarity, when a decision was made, one that inspired an absolute shift, and once that happened, he knew he was never going back.

Paula's third call went to voicemail with the others and his phone beeped in alert of her newest message. It still wasn't the time, and he apologized aloud to the room only he occupied. What she had to say, he didn't know, but he wasn't yet resilient enough for the disappointment, certainly not from someone of such value to him and not in that place of sanctuary, so he would continue to wait and so would she have to. But with his phone already in hand, he dialed Alexis' number. Surely they should've arrived already.

"We're here, Dad," she said without a reciprocal greeting, sounding every bit as exasperated as he imagined he would if he'd had to spend all that time in the car alone with his mother. "We've had to stop at all three wine shops. I swear, if we get pulled over by the cops, they're going to ask to see her liquor license."

Rick chuckled, and the recently foreign sensation wasn't lost on him. "Honestly, is there anyone on the planet more predictable than Martha Rodgers? I should've called ahead and told them to lock their doors. Sorry, sweetie. Ice cream cones on me tonight."

"More like all week," Alexis quipped with an unintended rattle of glass. "I have to go, Dad. There are speed bumps." The line went silent and she was gone, and until they pulled up in front of the house, the only thought Rick had was about how impossible it seemed that anything more could possibly have fit inside the car.

"In one piece and as good as new, kiddo," Martha said smugly as she tossed Rick the keys.

"Thank you, Mother," he replied as she sauntered past and into the house. "Should I call a mechanic to come check it out, just in case?" Alexis was standing close enough to hear his purposefully lowered voice, though Martha was already long gone.

"Couldn't hurt. With all the extra bottle weight, I think I might've heard the sound of metal scraping when she drove over those speed bumps," she teased.

"Another Memorial Day week together, you and me," Rick said pulling her in. "This is exactly what I need right now."

"Me too, Dad, and thanks for letting me skip school, today. Last trip before I leave for camp for the summer."

He heard far too much excitement in her voice. "Gee, thanks for reminding me." There was no excitement in his.

 **xxxx**

Kate spent most of the morning wrapping up an inventory of the bookshop with the help of Merle and Margaret Whitman's grandson, Ryan. He attended community college nearby, and owed his tuition to their generosity, so he came in from time to time when Kate needed another body and his class schedule allowed. But that was, of course, not the only reason he so generously offered his free time.

Kate Beckett was, by any and all accounts, a stunning beauty of a woman, though she'd never acknowledge such a label as fact. She attracted much attention because of it, but it brought her no reprieve from the valleys of life, no whiff of power that she ever embraced. She tried her best to live simply, though simple wasn't anything close to her life, and that, to her, after all that'd happened in her brief years, seemed an admirable goal.

"Need anything else before I take off, Kate?" Ryan asked almost hoping for the affirmative.

She glanced around the modest shop, tidy and free of patrons, and came back to him. "I'm good, Ryan. Go ahead. Thanks again for helping out."

He looked at her as he always did before he took his leave, as though snapping a mental photograph to hold him over until the next time he saw her, and she felt a warm blush. He was just a kid, yes, but his focus never failed to remind her. It'd been a long time since she'd looked at a man in that way, since her eyes had feasted longingly on someone, and that was a thrill she missed.

"No problem," he said taking his leave. "Hey, by the way, when are you going to let me take you out, Kate?" It was almost like a bit they did, now, a running joke, but one where only one of them was actually kidding.

"When I'm not almost old enough to be your mother," she shot back with a smirk for the umpteenth time, an exaggeration, yes, but one always made for humorous effect.

The bell on the front door settled as he disappeared and she took a peek at her watch. It was another Friday, and her twice-a-month standing appointment with Dr. Burke was to begin in twenty minutes.


	2. Chapter 2

Kate had been meeting for sessions with Dr. Burke for several years, though less frequently now than she had early on, when he was first recommended to her in the wake of her mother's death. And it was true; it sometimes felt more like she continued to return now out of habit than anything else, but he'd been a life raft for her when it seemed she'd had little more, and despite how difficult it often was to face what she needed to and, further still, to talk about those things, their time together remained something of incredible value to her.

Without question, he'd helped save her, and in no small way. She'd had time to prepare herself for the afternoon her mother closed her eyes to rest and never again woke, yet the moment it happened, Kate quickly realized just how empty all the pep talks she'd given herself were, how all the assurances she'd offered her mother about how strong she'd be for herself and for her father had been meant only to placate, and the feelings of guilt her perceived failures brought on felt like mountains on her shoulders. Burke had taught her how to begin to let go of that burdensome weight, and her gratitude was true.

"Kate," he said when he stepped out of his office to find her waiting, "nice to see you, as always."

He moved aside and allowed her to pass. "I bet you say that to all the patients," she teased without reply.

The two sat in their usual way in their usual chairs and began as they usually did, Kate waiting for him to instigate the initial course of their conversation. There'd been more than a few occasions when she would've been happy to sit in fifty minutes of complete silence, but he'd certainly never allowed her that childish indulgence.

"So, how are things? Did you do what it was we spoke about last session?" It sounded positively rehearsed-therapy-cliché-but that was just Burke's way.

She'd had homework, but it was homework of her own assignation, a list item that'd remained unexecuted for far too long. "You mean Josh?" She knew exactly what he meant, of course.

"That is what I mean, yes. Have you talked to him?"

Josh was a complication. Josh made things messy, and Kate was supposed to be in the game of simple. Josh was where she'd run too many times and for too many wrong reasons, and she knew it-yet still.

He was someone who'd been in her life for a long time, since days involved little care more than making sure they were home in time for dinner, and she'd made the mistake of thinking that meant they still knew each other. Time and again, it'd been proven otherwise, but the illusion of its trueness, the comfort of a connection to a person from a happier past, was one often too convenient for her to resist.

"Yes." Burke nodded once, his tacit ask of more. "Sort of. I mean, I told him we need to talk, but we haven't, yet. I will, though."

"You're not doing this for me, Kate," he reminded her around her attempt at a sufficient reply.

"I know that. I'm seeing him tonight. I'll be at the station."

Burke recognized the hardened tone and he veered off. "And work? Your father?" He asked as though those things were somehow equal. How she wished they were.

"Work's fine. I finished my spring inventory this morning. Things are slower right now, but traffic will pick up with the summer coming. It always does." As she talked, she picked at the cuticle of her thumb, a common target of her residual energy during her sessions. "My dad's the same as he always is. I go to work, and he sleeps. I come home and sleep, and he drinks." The answer never came out of her any easier, no matter how many times she'd given it. "He told me he's going to start renting out our cabin this summer since we never go up there, anymore."

Kate hated everything about that unexpected bit of news. They'd had that cabin in the Catskills since she was just a kid, and every thought of it, every memory of it, was filled with her mother-with her _with_ her mother. The idea of strangers invading that space like they would any other for the right price felt like some sort of betrayal, like yet another crack in a Beckett family already teeming with cracks.

"It sounds like that might not be something you want."

"It doesn't matter what I want," Kate snapped at the easy target, her hurt masked as anger. "It never does."

"Is that what you believe, Kate? That what you want doesn't matter to your father?"

She found a spot off in the distance and locked onto it, anywhere but in his eyes, because there suddenly presented a very real chance tears would come, and in that moment she wasn't prepared for that. It'd been months since the last time, months of control, control that was hers.

"It used to," she replied faintly to some knickknack off on a shelf.

 **xxxx**

Rick unpacked his bag-the only one he brought, in sharp contrast to the girls-tossed his clothes into a drawer, mostly shorts and tees that they were, and spent the subsequent ten minutes lugging their things upstairs for them. They were both already well in mode, Martha on the phone arranging a spa afternoon for later in the week and Alexis out on the back steps with her head in a pleasure book, leaving Rick the only one of the three who still seemed to have any restless left in him.

He popped his head out the door and told Alexis he was going into town for some groceries, his invitation to join declined over her need to find out what was to come on the pages ahead, and he took off in the Benz, largely to make sure it still felt like the same car he'd bought just a few months before, given Martha's earlier stint behind the wheel.

The traffic around was already a nightmare, and though Rick knew to expect it and was accustomed to its inevitable reality come the holiday weekend leading into summer, it felt particularly offensive on that day.

He finally managed to find a spot in the side lot of the market after the unleashing of many a rowdy expletive of frustration in his search, and he climbed out of the car just as the person parked between the lanes next to him did the same.

"Rick?" came a female voice from behind him, one he immediately recognized and one he wished desperately not to have to stop for. "Rick Castle, is that you?"

His eyelids dropped shut and he took a deep breath in. The Hamptons really was too damn small.

"Misty, hello," he said turning to find her now very much in his space. She always did that, he remembered, and the recollection wasn't a fond one.

"Well, well, it is you. What are you doing here?" She sounded positively amazed, as though shopping for pasta and bananas was something she couldn't imagine he'd ever do.

"Donating a kidney," Rick deadpanned to the blank stare he imagined might result. Misty never was the sharpest crayon in the box. Funny enough, that was something he actually once liked about her. "No, I'm joking," he went on tossing in a faux chuckle for good measure. "Just here to stock up the house for the week." He instantly regretted giving her that much and hoped the words might simply go in and fall out the other side.

She gave him a pinch to the arm and released a raucous howl of laughter, one far greater than the moment warranted. "You're still so funny," she said slowly coming down from the high. "Almost as funny as you are hot." She was all but climbing him by that point. "I heard about your divorce. Call me," she whispered in his ear before stepping around and continuing on her way.

He stood and watched her go; one, because he wanted to give her a head start in order to avoid any further contact, and two, because she left him with the thought of the days when he spent time with people like her, days that suddenly seemed like a lifetime ago, one he felt more remarkably removed from than ever, and that was a thought that came with a punch.

 **xxxx**

Following an afternoon spent by the pool and a pasta dinner courtesy of Rick's hand, he and Alexis headed out, at Martha's insistence, to their favorite ice cream shop for triple-scoop cones. She volunteered to stay behind and clean things up, the wine bottle open on the counter more than likely the reason for her charity, so father and daughter parked themselves on a bench in town and feasted on dessert without her.

"How's the butter pecan?" Rick asked around a mouthful of mint chip. Inevitably, no matter how delicious his own final combination tasted, he always found himself regretful over not choosing this flavor or that and envious of whatever anyone else had.

"How are you, Dad?" Alexis said without offering him a response. She'd been more hesitant to ask of late, not because she didn't want to know, but because there was some part of her that was afraid of what the answer might be.

She couldn't recall a time when she'd seen him the way he'd been during the past few weeks. Her father was the very opposite of dark, always-or around her, certainly-but aside from an occasional glimmer, the light she was so accustomed to now appeared to have been swallowed up.

"What do you mean? I'm fine, sweetie," Rick responded far too quickly. "Everything's just fine."

They didn't lie to one another. That wasn't a spoken rule or a decided upon course of action. That was them, part of their bond, from day one. Except in that moment.

"Don't do that, Dad. You may not think of me as a woman, but I'm not a kid, either, and I know you better than anyone else does. You don't think I can see it? You don't think I can feel it?"

His chin dropped. As much as he wanted to pretend with her, as much as he'd tried to-not to deceive but to protect-he knew she'd see. "I'm sorry. I know you're not a kid, which I do hate a little bit, by the way."

"A _little_ bit?" She nudged him with her elbow, a gesture of silent comfort, and he reciprocated.

"This has really been a tough one for me, Alexis, and not because of the sales or the money, though those never hurt. This book was different. I've never connected in this way with something I've written, and the fact that it seems to have had the very opposite effect on everyone else is just something I never expected. I guess I haven't quite been able to make peace with that, yet." He quickly slurped the edge of his neglected cone. "So much for lucky number thirteen, huh?"

"Your book was really great, Dad, and for whatever it's worth, I loved it. And I know it's easy for me to say this, but like you've told me a hundred times before, the only person that matters is you. As long as you love it, it shouldn't matter what anyone else thinks."

Rick leaned over and pecked her forehead. "Your father is so wise," he teased. "If only he could learn to take his own advice."

 **xxxx**

The radio station was quiet that night, not that it was ever really a beehive of activity with its size, and Kate found herself there alone with Josh, who was the current station manager, ahead of the start of her show.

She'd felt nervous or anxious or some other incarnation of unsettled since her appointment earlier that afternoon with Dr. Burke, and being around Josh when she knew what was to soon come certainly didn't help to alleviate any of that. The trouble of it, what made it so difficult, was that she did love him, in many ways she did, but the role she'd cast him in was bad for her life, and knowing that and actually saying that were two very different things.

Josh squeezed the back of her neck as he came in, passed behind her chair for his own. "You look hot tonight," he told her absent a greeting. "You and Lanie going out after?"

A week without a shared word and that was the first thing he chose to say.

"She's on shift, tonight, just like every other Friday." He should know that. She could already feel her defenses. "I want to talk after the show, Josh."

"Yeah, I mean I'm supposed to meet Tom for a beer over at the bar, but I'm sure I can spare a few minutes for you first." He smiled but she didn't, and he noticed. "I was kidding, Kate. It's okay to smile." He settled at the board opposite her to get ready for air. "You never used to be this serious."

Honestly, it was like they were living in two entirely different worlds.

"I'm doing chapters ten and eleven, tonight," she said moving for the convenient distraction, the one consistent joy she could count on. Her regular listeners, of which she'd earned many, had chosen _To Kill a Mockingbird_ as their most recent novel, and the irony of her dedicating her nights to a story that involved such an exalted father-daughter team wasn't at all lost on her. "And then the phones."

She always stuck around for calls after each show, some folks phoning in with questions or opinions about the material and others who simply wished to praise her for the night's performance, and that part of the experience was why she kept coming back to it. If only for a couple of hours each week, she almost felt like the teacher she'd dreamed of becoming, impacting people with words and immersing them in new worlds. Being a part of their excitement is what fed her, what filled her.

When they wrapped up that night, Josh shut things down while Kate visited the restroom, finding him afterwards in his office in the back. She dropped onto the old loveseat by the door and he remained at his desk across the room, a perfect visual metaphor for their current circumstance, if ever there was one.

"So, what's this all about, Kate? This is the second time you've said we need talk. Are we actually going to do it this time? Tom already has a cold one waiting for me."

And that was it. Everything about him set her off in that one second, everything about his tone and his demeanor, and all that had her on edge in the hours and weeks before suddenly felt as uncomplicated as turning off a light.

"I'm done, Josh," she said plainly, noting a palpable tinge of relief.

"You're done with what? With the show?"

No, absolutely not. Even with him around, she wouldn't give that up. That was hers.

"With us, with whatever it is we've been doing, with this thing where I give a shit but you don't, and we both just go on like everything's fine because it's easier."

Not that it was any surprise, but his response came without reflection and without true argument. "Okay. I'm not sure where this is coming from all of a sudden, but if that's what you want, Kate."

It wasn't sudden, and his marked indifference only served to reinforce her decision. This wasn't the person she knew.

"You know, it must really be nice to live in a world where everything's so simple, Josh." She stood and straightened herself out. "I wish I could live there. I'll be here to do the show every week, but I won't be here for anything else. I love you, but not anymore," she said and she walked out.

 **xxxx**

Martha managed to convince Alexis to put her book down for a few hours in the middle of the week and join her for her afternoon at the spa. Rick stayed behind at the house, grateful, quite frankly, to have a bit of time to enjoy it on his own. In a few weeks, when school was out for the summer, he'd be delivering Alexis upstate to camp and bidding his mother adieu as she headed for summer stock theatre on the Connecticut coast, and though this trip was to have been heavy with family bonding, as he worked to find a path out of the funk he was in, the breathing room felt like something of a relief.

He cracked a second cold beer and set off again for the patio when the doorbell stopped him. And it wasn't just one ring, but rather a prolonged attack on the button that didn't stop until he tore open the door with a chafed _Enough already!_

"Three goddamned messages I leave you, and nothing," barked Paula as she plowed through the tiny space between him and the doorframe and into his foyer. "What the hell's the matter with you?"

Rick still had the beer in hand, which he quickly chugged a large portion of before turning around to her-some sort of feeble attempt at instantaneous liquid courage. "Paula, what are you doing here?" he asked and then instantly wished he hadn't. Of course she knew he was there. He was there every Memorial Day week.

"What am I doing here?" Her booming voice echoed off the walls and it sounded like there was four of her. "I'm here trying to find out why my client, you, is ignoring my phone calls like I'm some goddamned telemarketer instead of the woman who's helped make his career." Her hand found her hip and the stare began, the one with the high eyebrow and no blink.

He took a few steps backwards and crouched to a seat on the stairs. It felt like he was doing a lot of apologizing lately, especially to people he cared about. "I know. I'm sorry," he said. "I was going to call you later."

She set her handbag on the table beside her. "I'm a big girl, Rick. I can do without the apology. And you were going to call me later? Really? That might be the shittiest dialogue you've ever come up with."

Somehow her Queens managed to sound even thicker when she was pissed off. Rick always found that fascinating, mostly because he wasn't sure how it was even possible. "It seems that's debatable," he replied with a self-deprecating snicker. "At least if you read my recent reviews."

"Oh, is that what this is about? Huh? Some bullshit posted by morons on the internet? Come on, Rick half of them probably never read the damn book in the first place and the other half probably can't read at all. Since when do you give a crap about this stuff?"

The honest answer was probably always, but he'd become a master of deflecting with humor. Maybe it was his mother's doing-countless auditions and countless rejections-or that his gift of wit earned him the sort of attention he welcomed. Whatever it was, it'd served him well, to a point.

"Since five weeks ago."

Luckily for her, she'd elected to wear a pants suit for her lunch meeting at Southampton Grill, which made it far easier for her to take a comfortable seat next to him. "Look, Rick, you wrote a dozen decent books everyone orgasmed over and one great book idiots don't know what the hell to do with. Who gives a shit?" Rick gave her a suspicious eye. "What the hell's that look for?"

"Paula, are you a reviewer with the username TopJock4747 on ? Your poetic speak is eerily similar."

"Hey, this speak has made you a lot of money, okay. And don't start with the sarcasm. You think I didn't invent that game?" She pushed herself up off the step and retrieved her bag. "The book was really good, Rick, so stop listening to all the shit out there, and go bang on your keyboard for a while, okay? Give that ex-witch of yours-thank God, by the way-the one book you owe her, and then write me something to sell."

He followed her to the front door, which was still open from when she came in. "I'll call you," he told her.

"But I shouldn't hold my breath, right?" Her lips pursed in a smirk. "Write something," she called out as she slipped into her car. "It's one of the best things you do."

"Thanks, Paula." His words were quiet, surely too quiet for her to hear them, but he knew. She didn't need them, anyway.


	3. Chapter 3

Three weeks later, Rick was in the car on his way back towards the city from upstate, having dropped off Alexis at Pine Lake Camp for the summer, where she'd been hired on as a junior counselor. She'd already begun resume building for perspective colleges, despite that transition still being a few years off, and though he'd whined incessantly about it, and though he hated that she'd be away for two months, leaving him to his own devices, he never once tried to talk her out of it. Alexis was exactly as Alexis needed to be, as she always had been, and his pride as a father, one that never knew the same of his own, was immeasurable.

He pulled off of I-87 in Cornwall to fill up the Benz's tank, something he hadn't done before they left the city, and to grab a bite to eat, conveniently spotting a diner right in the center of town. From what he could tell, it was a busy Saturday afternoon, and parking was definitely an issue, so he drove past and down the block, hooked an eventual right and found a spot just on the edge of a No Parking zone. He hadn't yet seen a cop, and the town seemed small enough that parking patrols probably wouldn't be regular, so he took a chance and left the car where it was.

He passed an old hardware store as he walked his way back around, a pet grooming shop and a post office the size of a closet, before he came upon a front window lined with books. That's where he saw her for the first time, through that window, in that bookshop, off that interstate exit he'd chosen entirely at random.

Rick went inside. Of course he did. And he did so because he had no choice. His body, his brain, his nothing would permit him to do otherwise.

The sound of a tiny bell rang above his head when he pushed open the wooden door, as though he wasn't already charmed enough, and the woman that'd unknowingly enticed him in, though in conversation with someone else at the time, welcomed him with a delicate wave of her hand, which he acknowledged with the same and then allowed her to continue.

He adored places like that. Places like that were owned by people who loved books and existed for people who loved books. It was just that simple. It was just that pure-people and pages.

The woody scent of the air soothed him as he wandered the shop's narrow paths around circular tables of hardcovers and paperbacks, some classics and some not, and it was as he neared the area of the register that he happened to spot it. It was just one, alone amongst a collection of other newer works, and it stopped him in his tracks. It was his own, his number thirteen, Richard Castle's brilliant failure of a novel about a father unknown yet longed for, and he swallowed hard at the sight.

Rick picked it up and held it, scrutinized its front and back, its shape and texture, as though it was the first time. He recalled holding that first copy months ago and how different it felt in his hands from his others-heavier with the parts of himself he'd infused it with-and it still carried that weight for him now, there, only more so, with the added burden of his disappointment.

"Hi, sorry about the wait. Can I help you find something?" the woman asked, her approach unheard and her voice, so close, unexpected.

Rick flinched in surprise and tightened his fingers around the book, as if it might break like glass if he were to drop it. "I'm…Oh, sorry. I guess I was somewhere else for a minute." He set it back on the table as it was and came back to her.

She could tell she'd reacted to him in some way because she could feel the change in her body, but what she couldn't tell was if he'd noticed or not. It was him. It was Richard Castle, a man she recognized instantly, a writer whose career she'd followed for years, ever since her mother had returned home from the teaching conference that'd turned out to be her last with one of his paperbacks in her messenger bag. And it wasn't starstruck. That wasn't it. She'd met literary heroes and not experienced whatever this moment was. This moment was different.

"Well, that's easy to do in this place," she said resisting the impulse to call him by name. "There are a lot of worlds to visit."

Rick scanned the room and let his eyes find her again. "This is a great shop. It's warm, welcoming. I wish there were still more like it. Is it yours? Are you Whitman?" He'd already forgotten about everything outside of those walls, about the car and the gas and the food. All he wanted was to hear her talk.

"Um, no, I'm not, actually. I don't own it, I just run it for the couple that does-been here almost sixty years."

"Wow, I'm impressed," he said. "You barely look a day over twenty-five."

Her cheeks warmed pink. "Oh, so you're here looking for books about how to be funnier. You'll want to look over in our Self-Improvement section." She pointed abstractly, stifled a smile.

Rick followed her finger out and caught a glimpse of his own title again on the way back in. "Very cute," he said, both sarcastic and sincere. "Just out of curiosity, have you, um, have you read this one here, by any chance?"

She looked down at the table and realized to which he was referring. "I'm sorry, I haven't, no. Should I?" she asked innocently, curious as to how he might respond. She'd read the stories about his perceived conceit. She knew the way he was portrayed.

"I don't know," he replied with honest reserve, and they stood there in silence for a moment before he said anything more. "I wonder if you'd have dinner with me." It just came out. He didn't even know what the hell he was asking until it did. He didn't even live there, for crying out loud. Frankly, he barely even knew where _there_ was.

"I don't…No," she responded clumsily yet without hesitation.

"You don't know?"

She didn't realize how her answer must've sounded. "No, I know, but no."

Somehow, that, Rick managed to follow. "Why not?" The very question of a man accustomed to getting what he wanted.

She looked at him sideways. "Because I met you three minutes ago. I don't even know your name." A fib it was, for many reasons.

"Well, I mean, you don't need to answer right away. I can just wander around for a few minutes and give you some time to think about it," he said, making it only about three steps before she offered her second reply, just a firm as the first.

"Still no."

Rick didn't look back and he didn't stop walking, though he did find himself grinning on his way out the door, and, in truth, all the way down the street to the diner, and he was left to wonder if he might ever be able to stop.

 **xxxx**

The lunch crowd was heavy, so Rick opted for the counter at the diner rather than take up an entire booth just for himself, which he preferred, anyway. The old place had those round, chrome seats covered in red vinyl, the ones that spun and squeaked with age, and they always presented some air of cool that he found himself drawn to.

"Menu, handsome?" the woman pacing behind the counter asked, though she moved right on by before he was able to provide an answer. Despite the traffic down the line next to him, she appeared to be working the afternoon set on her own.

"Yeah, thanks," he said after her, and she slid one in front of him on her next trip by.

"I need that melt, George!" she hollered into the kitchen through a cutout of a window. "Jimmy's lookin' at me funny." Jimmy, Rick noted, seemed to be doing nothing of the sort. In fact, he had his head buried in a newspaper from what he could tell, but her tactic amused him, nonetheless.

"You seem like you've been here a few times," Rick said smartly, angling in some to score a better look at the woman's name tag. "What would you recommend, Dot?"

"I'd recommend the joint down the street," she replied with a guffaw, and as quickly as she said it, he imagined she'd used the line countless times before. "I'm kiddin', sweetie. How about a nice Reuben? The dressing's homemade."

"Done," Rick said, handing the menu back across the counter.

"You're easy. I like men like you." Dot winked, but not skillfully. Returning moments later with a glass of water and his Coke, she sought to alleviate some of her curiosity. "Now, I have a brain that remembers every face it sees. Don't ask me how. It's old, but it does, and it's sure it's never had the pleasure of yours. Tell me your name, sweetie."

"Richard," he said as though properly answering a teacher in school. "Rick."

"Huh, I knew a Richard, once. Folks called him Dick. Anyone ever call you Dick?"

He nearly spit out his mouthful of soda. "Not to my face, usually. Well, maybe my ex-wives."

Dot nodded. "I definitely like you," she said before she moved off, once more.

By the time she brought him his sandwich the place had emptied some, so Rick seized the opportunity to do a bit of digging, himself, with someone he presumed would be in the know.

"So, Dot, question for you. I stopped in that bookshop down the street on the way here, and there was a woman working who was-"

"Oh, she's a bit of sunshine, isn't she?" she interrupted knowing right away who he was speaking about. "Kate's one of our favorites around here. She comes in here every morning to see us."

"Kate." Rick repeated it back like he'd just heard the perfect name. "She definitely leaves an impression."

"Aww, now don't go getting your hopes up, handsome. I'm sorry to be the one to break this to you, but she's been seeing the manager down at the station for a while. Name's Josh."

Clearly he'd been _that_ obvious to have elicited the unfortunate news without having asked. "The station?" And why his brain thought that was the next important question was beyond him.

"Yep, she does these reading things every Friday night on the radio, you know with famous books. We get to pick 'em and she reads 'em. He's the manager over there. Known each other since they were kids." Dot watched his expression take a definitive turn. "You know, I do have myself a gorgeous granddaughter, though. I feel like I can tell you that. You don't seem much the serial killer type."

Rick found himself caught between utterly charmed and dejected to a degree he didn't expect. "A compliment for the ages, Dot. I'll take it, thank you." He finished down his soda and pulled out his wallet. "For the Rueben, the memorable company, and the offer, but I'm afraid I must now bid your town adieu. The concrete jungle awaits."

"If you change your mind, you know where to find me," Dot said, earning an objection from her husband.

"Quit flirting with the damn customers, Dottie, and get these plates outta here, huh?"

She slowly turned, threw him a dagger of a look over her hunched shoulder, and he backed out of sight. "Forty-seven years, and the silent eye still works," she chirped entirely pleased with herself.

Rick dropped a stack of large bills onto the counter, far more than his check required. "You're fun people, Dot. I'm glad Exit 17 called my name."

She sent him off with a salute. "Me too, handsome. Come back and see us."

He found the small piece of paper pinned between his windshield wiper and his front window when he returned to the car, the potential parking ticket he'd scoffed at when he'd chosen to park it where he did. He laughed as he read it, because how could be not. There might never be a better 40 dollars spent in his life. And he would. He would definitely be back, and though he'd never reveal it to Dot, her diner wouldn't be the reason why.

 **xxxx**

Lanie poured them each another glass of wine, their third apiece, on a girls' night in at her place, one they'd had planned for over a week. She worked night shifts at the hospital, for the most part, so on the rare occasion she did find herself free, the two always tried to take advantage of the time and spend at least a part of it together.

They met for the first time when Kate came home from school to help her father, Lanie new to the hospital's nursing staff at the time, and they'd been the closest of friends ever since, finding themselves with one of those instant connections that came along too infrequently to ignore, and without Lanie, Kate knew how lost she would've been during those early months-and would still be.

"So, how's the cardiologist?" Kate asked. Lanie's escapades tended to rival what one might see on a daytime soap opera-never without hot drama-and the tales that came out of them always entertained, no matter how many glasses had been consumed.

Lanie closed her eyes and took a deep breath in, clearly relishing some memory or another. "Still making my toes curl after four months, that's for damn sure. The other day? A supply closet." She immediately held out her hand to shush Kate, before she even had a chance to say anything. "I know. Cliché, maybe. Hot, definitely."

"You ever get any work done in that place?" Kate teased.

"Just save an occasional life is all. How many did you save, today, bookworm?" She drank a self-satisfied sip of her red, and Kate stuck out her tongue in fun. "And how's _Jo_ sh?" There was a tone that usually accompanied the utterance of his name, and there it was. Lanie cared little for him, beyond the fact that Kate considered him someone of great importance in her life, and she never pretended otherwise.

"Fine, I guess. I've only seen him at work since we had that talk a few weeks ago, so. It still isn't normal between us, whatever the hell that's supposed to be, but I'm still glad I did it."

"Girl, I'm sorry, I can't help it. I'm still so happy I could cry."

"Yeah, I'm getting that. You know, you don't know him like I do. He really is a nice guy, Lanie."

"He's just a shitty boyfriend," Lanie grumbled. "If that's even what he was. I still don't know what in God's name you two were up to, no matter how many times you've tried to explain it to me."

Kate thought on it a moment. "Neither did I, after a while."

Lanie reached over and tapped her affectionately on the knee. "So, does this mean I finally get to set you up with a proper man?"

"You mean the kind that likes to do it in supply closets?" Kate quipped. "No, thank you."

"Hey, do not knock it till you've tried it. I'm just saying. And let's not forget that I know a few things about you, too, okay. Yes, I do." When Kate came back with nothing, Lanie threw up her fingers and snapped in her face. "Earth to Kate. Too much wine for you, tonight, or what?"

"Sorry, I was just thinking about something that happened at work, today."

"Ryan hit on you again? I swear, that boy."

Kate moved beyond the comment without acknowledgement. "Richard Castle came into the shop this afternoon."

Lanie returned a blank stare. "I give up. Who's Richard Castle?"

"The writer," Kate said pointedly. "Richard Castle."

"Girl, you can keep saying his name all you want, but it's still not going to make me know who the hell you're talking about. Do we like him? Has Oprah recommended him? What?"

"You know, Lanie, you really need to come out of the supply closet and pick up a book, once in a while. He writes mystery novels, or he did until recently. They were pretty major."

Lanie set down her glass and picked up her phone. "I work all night and I sleep all day, Kate. When is it you'd like me to squeeze in time for a book, exactly?" She began typing into her phone. "Is he hot? I'm looking him up." He was hot, and Kate already knew it, but she wasn't about to say so for fear she'd never hear the end of it. "Ooo, yes, he is fine. I'm going to order me some of those books right quick." Her face still buried in the search results, she asked on. "So, what happened when he came in?"

"Nothing. I mean, we just talked for a couple of minutes about the shop and stuff."

"Scintillating, Kate," Lanie said with a roll of her eyes. "This sexy man came into your bookstore." She pushed the phone into Kate's face, Rick's blanketing the entire screen. "Sorry, this sexy man who, apparently, is now single came into your bookstore, and you, who are _also_ now single, talked to him about what?"

Kate pushed up off the sofa and grabbed Lanie's glass as she headed for the kitchen. "He also asked me out, actually."

Lanie flew out of her seat and took off after her. "And this is the lead you bury? You read way too many books not to know what the good details are, Katherine Beckett. The famous author asked you out?"

"He did."

"And what the hell did you say?"

Kate threw her a look like she was crazy for even asking. "Seriously? I said no. Lanie, I talked to the guy for, like, five minutes. He doesn't even know my name. It was just weird."

Lanie's face screamed disbelief as Kate emptied what little remained in the bottle of wine into their glasses. "When was the last time you looked in a mirror, Kate?" she asked to a quizzical brow. "You are a drop-dead gorgeous woman, whether you like to acknowledge it or not, and that means men are going to ask you out-five minutes, five hours, or five days."

"It doesn't even matter. He lives down in the city, anyway."

Lanie, still with phone in hand, began quietly typing, again, clearly on a mission. "You make it sound like it's another country, for crying out loud. Need I remind you the city is only…" She took a pause to flash the evidence she collected. "Fifty-six miles from here. And don't even try to pull that he-could-be-a-serial-killer crap, either." Taking notice of Kate's sneer, she continued with a far gentler tone. "I'm just saying, Kate, at some point, you're going to need to start creating some of your own stories, and as scary as it is not knowing what the ending is going to look like, sometimes things really do work out."

"Okay, fine," Kate agreed, though with audible reservation. "You can set me up one time. _One_. So you better make it good."

 **xxxx**

Rick spent most of that week following his impromptu afternoon stop in Cornwall listening to archived recordings of Kate's reading nights from the radio station's website. They had six months of them stored and available, hours upon hours of her melodic voice delivering the words of masters, and if not for some worry about what her husband's reaction might be, he surely would've showered Dot with gifts to high heaven for mentioning the weekly event to him in the first place.

He already knew all the stories, of course, had read and studied them before, both in and out of school, but he'd never heard them aloud, filtered through a person who had an undeniable passion for them and their art, and it was almost as though he was experiencing them for the first time.

The loft was quiet with Alexis gone, though his mother was still in town for the next couple of weeks before her own summer jaunt up to Connecticut, and when Friday arrived, Rick had himself planted on his bed, computer in his lap, ready to listen live to Kate's newest installment.

As soon as it began, he felt the smile hit his face, and very few things of late had managed to elicit one of those from him. As she read on about Atticus and Scout, he found himself wondering about Kate and her father, about what sort of relationship they might have, as he often did about people he came into contact with, given his own family circumstance.

"All right, darling, I'm off," Martha said breezing into the room via his office. "And clearly you're not. Bed already, Richard?" She tossed her airy scarf over her shoulder. "It's Friday night. Honestly, you need to get out of this place and have some fun, and are you even listening to me? What is that that is so much more important than your mother?"

"What?" Rick asked her having absorbed nothing of or following her entrance.

Martha's shoulders slumped dramatically. "I'm going out, kiddo," she sighed. "Ice cream's in the freezer."

He didn't flinch. In fact, the only time he moved at all during the entire two-hour show was when he practically dove off the bed to get to his desk for his phone, which he'd left in the other room. It was that part of the evening, those few moments when outsiders had the opportunity to participate-also known on that night as Rick's time to try again.

He dialed the station's number correctly, finally, after two failed attempts brought on by his fumbling haste, and was rewarded with a busy signal for his effort. He recalled the number several times, like a teenager trying to win concert tickets in some on-air contest, until he managed to succeed and get through.

"Oh, hi, hello? Is this Kate's show?"

"You've reached the screener for the show, yes. Do you have a question about tonight for Kate?"

Shit.

He didn't. He didn't actually have a question prepared. Well, certainly not one about what he'd just listened to, so he quickly tried to improvise, and it seemed he had about as much skill at it as his mother.

"I, uh, I do, of course, yes. It's about the book and the, uh, the characters in that book." Rick swore he could hear a snicker that followed, but, frankly, he'd well earned it.

"Okay, well, what's your name? You're going to be up third."

He had no idea why he did it, but, like an idiot, Rick answered "Steven."

"I'm going to put you on hold, Steven. It's just going to be dead air while you wait, so don't hang up thinking I have. The next voice you hear will be Kate's."

Steven and Rick had to come up with something-fast.


	4. Chapter 4

Rick remembered everything about his first conversation with Kate, however brief it was, and he'd found himself calling on those moments as a pick-me-up during the days since. He was a man who'd found his way into a professional world that brought with it powerful rewards, often in the form of introductions that proved later to be of some benefit, and though he'd met countless memorable people-many of them women-he couldn't recall one that'd left him in such an intoxicated state.

When Kate finally got around to listener call number three, his call-or Steven's, as it were-Rick felt a stir. Sure, he'd just spent hours listening to her voice; he'd been doing the same all week. But something instantly happened inside of him knowing that her attention was again his, and he realized, even after just a week since their meeting, he'd missed that.

"Hello, Steven, this is Kate. I appreciate you listening, tonight, and I understand you have a question about the characters in the novel."

It was almost comical how wrong she was, almost as comical as how idiotic he'd sounded offering up that character nonsense as an excuse to get to her, but there was nothing more he could do at that point except dive in.

"Actually, I called in for another reason." And this was where the leap of it all was. Rick had no possible way of knowing whether or not he'd made any sort of impression on her at the bookshop that day, so he was about to feel either incredibly foolish or incredibly relieved. "Since books are your area of expertise, I wondered if you might be able to recommend a few to a man who's looking to try to be funnier."

Then came a notable pause-a too long period of silence one wasn't accustomed to hearing on live air without imagining some level of panic on the part of those in charge on the other end-and Rick waited in it and hoped for the best.

"Well, _Steven_ , that's sort of an odd question for me to be answering on this show," Kate began, and he knew right away. "I would, um, I'd recommend that you maybe give the Self-Improvement section at your local bookstore a visit."

He knew by the inflection of her voice, by the tiny but nevertheless audible grin in her words, that she was right back there in that shop with him.

"Makes sense, I'll try that. Thanks for taking my call. Oh, hang on, just one more quick question. Now that you actually know what my name is would you go out with me?"

Just as the week before, there was no hesitation.

"Still no," Kate said, and Rick heard an oddly satisfying click.

 **xxxx**

They used to go to the stadium together for games all the time, Kate and her father, his love of baseball and, more specifically, of the Yankees proudly passed down to her when she was quite young. Her mother never quite understood the draw to the game, theirs or anyone else's, quite frankly, its pace far too slow for her more restless nature's taste, so the hours there were shared by the two alone, and they remained some of Kate's most treasured memories.

Sundays were welcome days of freedom for Kate, the one day each week when the bookstore was closed, and she relished their stillness. Jim hadn't been in the best of spirits of late-an unfortunate reality more frequent than not-and she'd decided to surprise him with tickets to that Sunday's afternoon game out at the stadium, an easy hour or so drive from the house. It'd been a few years since they'd made that trip south, and she couldn't recall having looked so forward to something in a long time.

That morning was no different than any other, Kate's visit to Smith's for coffee first and foremost on the agenda. At that early hour, the place was filled with mainly regulars, most of who seemed to know her and vice versa. Oh, she loved the city, to be sure, its bigness and its bustle, but there was, too, she thought, much to be said about the comfort of familiarity that accompanied life in a smaller town, even if it meant enduring the ribbing she still found herself subjected to two days out from Rick's phone call into the radio station.

"Hey, Kate," shouted an older gentleman perched on a swivel seat towards the end of the diner's counter.

She angled back some to locate the voice. "Morning, Stanley," she replied with a wave, and what sounded like something of a cheer ensued.

"Hear that, fellas?" Stanley beamed to his buddies around him. "She knows my name! Hey, will you go out with me now, Kate?"

Dot, stationed behind the counter, as always, shot him one of her famous looks, one most often reserved for her husband. "Don't listen to 'em, sunshine," she told Kate. "These turkeys just have nothing better to do. I still thought it was sweet, though the name thing is still sort of weird."

She'd prodded Kate for details the previous morning and discovered the voice on the phone after the show belonged to the man who'd asked about her over lunch, and his name definitely wasn't Steven. Dot always remembered.

And that'd definitely been sitting with Kate, too, the name, especially since Rick's intention with the invitation would naturally have been to try and get to know her better. "Yeah, well, I guess we'll never know," she said to tinge of something inside.

"I'll tell you this, sweetie. I wouldn't have said no to that man. That's for damn sure. And not just because of his big tip."

Dot's age never failed to amaze Kate when she heard some of the things that came out of her mouth.

"You're just an old flirt, Dot," she teased. "Better not let that hubby of yours, back there, hear you."

With a peek over her shoulder, she turned back. "He'd never do better than this old flirt, sunshine. Not a chance." She covered Kate's coffee cup with a lid and passed it over. "Now, you go have some fun with your dad, and tell him to get his rear in here to see us, okay?"

"I'll do that," Kate said knowing it would be much easier said than done.

 **xxxx**

Rick stumbled his way to the kitchen with all the grace of a toddler learning to walk, having been up until the wee hours finishing what was left of Kate's available radio shows on his laptop. He was drawn out of bed too early that morning by the sound of drawers and cabinets being opened and shut, with seemingly little care for them or for the loft's sleeping inhabitant, and he was more than ready to wring Martha's neck for it.

"Mother, it is Sunday morning. Please tell me why it is the construction couldn't wait until a more decent hour." And it might as well have been construction for all the noise.

"We've paid you a lot of money, Richard. Maybe you could try buying some boxers without holes in them."

That was not his mother's voice. And he loved those boxers. They'd always been lucky.

Rick forced his eyelids wide, did his best to focus through his confusion. "Gina?" He stopped walking and watched as she continued to rummage through his kitchen. "God, please tell me this is just some kind of awful nightmare," he thought aloud.

"The only nightmare here is your lack of skill in the art of kitchen organization." How funny, she said it as though she didn't live there for years, herself, and not all that long ago. "You have the Christofle in these drawers with junk from Ikea."

"Well, then it's a good thing you don't live here anymore, Gina. You'll never have to be subjected to the horror of my flatware faux pas ever again." He finally gathered himself enough to press on, stepping up to the breakfast bar. "How did you get in here, anyway?"

She pointed at her purse, her keys resting on top. "I just came for my Tiffany serving tray-which she'd already found and had sitting on the counter-and my Laguiole, Richard. Where is it? I'm having a dinner party this week."

"If I had any idea what the hell that was, Gina, I might be able to help you." He plopped down onto one of the stools. "I'm not saying I would, but."

She couldn't have been more frustrated, and he couldn't have been more amused by it. There were so many days he'd wondered why it was he married her, not that she was entirely devoid of allure, but aside from the shared desire to see his novels succeed, she being his prickly publisher, upon reflection, he found little in common actually existed between them.

"You're almost as funny as some of your recent reviews, Richard." She continued to bang about in search of her prized wine opener. "Speaking of which, Peter wants to talk about your contract."

That woke Rick up some. "What about my contract? I still have one more book."

Gina's demeanor mellowed when she finally located the last of what she came for. "Take it easy. All I said was talk, and I don't have any idea. He mentioned it to me as I was walking out of the office on Friday night. Call him tomorrow and find out."

"I will. Now can I please have my Sunday morning back? And my key?"

"Happily," she said and tossed the key ring in his direction. "And, really, if you ever hope to find a third ex-Mrs. Richard Castle, invest in some new underwear."

With that she made her exit, but the damage was done. For the next twenty-four hours, worrisome thoughts about his future with the publishing house would, no doubt, plague him, and here all he'd wanted to do was to sleep in.

 **xxxx**

Jim finally emerged from his room, but it was later than Kate hoped, giving them a much smaller travel window with which to make the start of the baseball game. Traffic was always a nightmare around the stadium, and kicking the trip off with the added pressure seemed discouragingly typical of how most of her efforts to enjoy time with her father went these days, but she hadn't dared wake him. From past attempts, she knew how well that usually went over, and this was supposed to be a good day for them.

His mood had only modestly improved from the night before. His leg bothered him constantly, or so he always said, never having healed entirely from the ferocity of the bullet wounds he suffered years ago, and he used that in place of Kate's mother's death as his excuse now for most things he did or didn't do, including the booze. He'd never turned to pills, just bottles-of the vodka variety, mostly-not that a liquid ally was any better, and though he'd tried before to quell his reliance upon it, he found himself, once again, firmly in its grip.

"Game's at 1PM, Dad. We need to get going if we want to make first pitch. It's a giveaway day, so it'll be a packed house. Everyone always shows up for those games."

"Yeah," Jim mumbled as he wandered past her and towards the kitchen. "I just need a sec, okay?"

He sounded irritated, already, and Kate knew exactly what he needed. "Do you want to wear your jersey, too, Dad?" She was already clad in her own, the one he'd bought for her in high school, an official-the best kind. The tink of glass was all she heard. "I can pull it out for you," she said in second effort.

"That's fine, Katie," he answered finally as he came back through the living room, and despite his withered tone, whenever he called her that, it always relit the spark of hope in her. He was still the only one that did, as unbelievable as it seemed, and hearing it helped her to believe the father she longed to have back was still in there, somewhere, beyond all the pain.

They set off within the hour, Kate in the driver's seat on that day, and ventured south towards the city. She succeeded in finding his jersey, so they, too, looked like teammates, the Beckett name stitched proudly on their backs.

"So, what's the final score for today, Dad?" He hadn't said much, but it was a thing they always did-a little game before the game, a bet for bragging rights rather than dollars. "I'm going with seven to four, Yanks." She glanced quickly to her right when she could and found him staring out the window. "Dad, are you okay?"

"This is the way I always drove to the precinct," he said apropos of nothing, yet with palpable nostalgia.

"I know it is. I'm sorry it was taken from you."

Yes, she'd left college when he was injured, and that'd been difficult for her-not the decision to come home to help him, but the reality of what the departure might mean for her future-but he'd been thrust out of a world that fulfilled him, a career he'd been wholly devoted to, and that was a type of ache Kate couldn't understand. All she could do was continue to try to make him see her, see that she was and would always be there for him.

"I'll take five to two. " He still hadn't pulled his gaze from the window. "Whoever's closest by the end of the seventh doesn't have to buy the ice cream. Deal?"

Kate smiled a small smile. "It's a deal, Dad."

 **xxxx**

They ended up missing most of the first inning, after all, mainly because of what a chore it was to find a parking spot and then walk as far as they had to with Jim's leg as it was. The afternoon was summer hot, but neither they nor anyone in the stands around them seemed to mind. Father and daughter had been too long gone from that place they loved, and the lion's share of that sentiment had little to do with the actual building they were in.

Jim was working on his second beer from their seats along the first base line. Kate never drank around him, ever. That was a decision she'd made long ago and one she never wavered from. She sipped from a large bottle of water, periodically flicking its condensation at his cheek with a giggle, like a kid at the ballgame with her dad might do. He was quiet, absorbed, really, and she let him have that. It was rare, now, for him to be out with the world in that way, and having him by her side was all that mattered to her.

"It's looking pretty good for me, here, Katie," he said noting the score as their bet deadline loomed. "I can't decide if I feel like having sprinkles on top of my ice cream or not."

"Yeah, well, don't celebrate too soon there, Beckett. We still have two on."

"And two outs," Jim cooed.

"Are you really rooting against us scoring right now, just so you don't have to pay for an ice cream cone?" Kate groaned over the chatter of the crowd. "Who is this man sitting next to me?"

The Yankee in the batter's box grounded out to the shortstop and the inning came to an end with a small triumph for Jim. Their fellow fans shifted and stirred, as usually happened with a break in the action, and the two found themselves up together for a stretch. Without a word, Jim pulled Kate in and held her tight. Her rhetorical question was one born of humor, yet it landed hard, and in that moment he wanted her to know, because of the game and the day and all that she was.

"I love you, Katie," he told her.

Of course she knew, but the words she didn't hear often enough, anymore.

 **xxxx**

As if he didn't already have enough reasons to be pissed off at Gina, Rick could now add barely any sleep to that list, since she'd mentioned a requested chat with Black Pawn about his still very active contract. He called Peter first thing that Monday morning and was told to drop by that afternoon, whenever he had a few minutes to spare. The boss man's words, actually, were 'It won't take long,' and under most circumstances, Rick would be tickled by such a promise. But that was before the new book and all of its many shortcomings.

"Good to see you, Ricky," Peter said, and gave him one of those half-hugs men were so fond of. They'd known each other since college, though they were far closer then, and he was the one that finally green-lighted Rick's first book all those years ago. After all the initial rejections, it was Peter who saw what so many others couldn't, and for that faith, Rick owed him a tremendous debt.

"You, too, Pete," Rick replied with hope the sentiment would hold.

"Why does it seem like you only come around when we have a large check to hand over?" Peter teased as he circled back behind his desk. "How's that fabulous kid of yours?"

Rick chose one of the two chairs opposite him and sat. "She'd probably have your head if she heard you call her that, first of all. My mother referred to her as a woman, recently, and I almost had hers. But, thanks for asking, Alexis is great. She's off at camp for the summer-counselor."

"Good for her, good for her. Listen, Ricky, thanks again for coming in. I wanted to just do a check-in after the release, now that things have settled a bit. Obviously, and I'm sure it's not a surprise to you, the book isn't doing as well as we'd hoped. Have you thought at all about the next one?"

He hadn't, nor did he have a good reason why.

"This has been tough, yeah," Rick replied. "I know we all talked about it and we knew it wouldn't be what Storm was, but I really didn't expect this kind of a reaction."

"Well, you have one. You know kids don't like it when you take away their candy, Ricky. Like you said, there was going to be an inevitable hit. Of course, we wish the hit wasn't this hard, but. Look, I don't know, maybe it was all staged, somehow-a faked death. I mean, you're the writer. Storm easily had people that could've helped pull that off."

It was clear what was being suggested, and it was never going to happen. "Pete, Derrick Storm is dead. There were no people. There was no fake anything. I'm done with that. I told you."

And that's when the tone changed. "Then you need to come up with something good, Ricky. Everybody's going to need to hear something really good if you want to move forward with us."

"I've made this firm a shitload of money, Pete. How often does that happen? How many other clients have had this kind of success for you?" Rick knew how foolish he sounded, how feeble his argument was, and he knew what was coming as a result.

"And then this book happened. You know damn well how it works, Rick. This is the one everyone remembers." The ironic thing was that's what Rick had wanted, for this book to be remembered, but certainly not like this. "Maybe go somewhere and clear your head. You always liked the islands. Go sit on some beach somewhere while you're kid's away and come up with some ideas. When you get back, call me."

If only it was all as easy as a beach.


	5. Chapter 5

Lanie huffed into Kate's ear on the other end of the line and then set about unleashing on her. "Kate Beckett, you told me you'd go out on one damn date, I set it all up with the guy, and now you're trying to back out with some lame-ass excuse about a late delivery at the store? Girl, I do not even think so. They're books. The store's already filled with them. Change it, because I am not calling Rick back."

Kate nearly spit out her Monday afternoon dose of caffeine. "His…his name is Rick?"

"So? What, you won't date _any_ man with that name now? I thought it was just Ricks who live in the faraway land known as Manhattan that were out of the running."

"Relax, I was just asking," Kate said convincing neither of them.

Lanie hummed her skepticism and then quickly fessed up. "Whatever, I was just messing with you. I just wanted to hear your reaction, and imagine my surprise that you had one. His name is actually Jordan."

"You're a pain in the ass, Parish. So, what's the deal, then, _if_ I can change Thursday's delivery?"

Honestly, Kate's regret over agreeing to this date was already ranked right up there with the LEGO-up-the-nose incident when she was six. Her level of enthusiasm sat somewhere in the negative-numbers range.

"He's going to call you at some point later. He's hot. Answer your damn phone when he does."

"Why do I get the feeling you're going to be the one owing me after all of this?"

Lanie shushed her. "You'll be changing that grouchy tune of yours when you see the man, trust me."

Somehow, the assurance didn't make Kate feel any better.

 **xxxx**

Kate changed her Thursday delivery from evening to morning which, to be honest, she knew she'd easily be able to do, even though she'd pretended-and badly-with Lanie to try and weasel out of the date. It was 7:38PM, and Jordan was late. They'd agreed to meet for a casual bite to eat in town after work, he a banker, and as she stood waiting for him in the restaurant's entryway, she found herself hoping he might not show.

But he did-eventually.

"Are you Kate?"

Someone put a hand to her lower back. She had to assume it was him because she'd stopped watching the door ten minutes before. In fact, she'd already decided that if she was the recipient of one more look of pity from the restaurant's hostess, she'd leave. Lucky for Jordan, the girl had wandered off someplace and abandoned her post just in the nick of time.

"I am," Kate said trying not to sound as aggravated as she was.

"Hi, I'm Jordan, and I'm sorry for being late. I won't bore you with the details because I'm sure I'm already one strike down." She brushed aside his assumption with a false chuckle, because, more than ever, she just wanted to get through the thing. "Should we go sit?"

He pulled out a chair for her once they were led to a table. That was a good thing. His subsequent attempts to inspect the state of his end-of-day hair in the reflection of the laminated menu, however, were less so.

"So, you work at a bank. That must be interesting," Kate offered as a lame ice-breaker in an effort to woo him away from his makeshift mirror.

"Actually, I'm an investment consultant," he corrected taking unmistakable umbrage at the perceived demotion. "I'm with Tyson, Neiman and Simmons." That meant nothing to Kate, of course, though it seemed she was to be impressed. "Here, take my card, in case you have any friends who're looking to invest."

He pulled a stack of cards out of his jacket pocket and handed a few to her. Apparently, he'd made the assumption she wasn't in a position to do likewise with her own money-not that she was, or she would.

"Thanks," she said, sliding the cards into her bag, unread.

"So, that's me. You write books?" He popped a chunk of the table's bread into his mouth, which he then proceeded to talk around. "I've always thought I'd be great at that. People tell me I have a way with words." And as quickly as she became the focus, she was no longer.

The night was young, but Kate was already at a point that she didn't want to hear any more of Jordan's words. "No, I sell books. I don't write them. I run a bookshop."

He cackled with amusement and drew the room's attention for it. "I guess we're even, then. I'm a banker and you're a writer. What the hell's going on with Lanie? She steered us both wrong." It didn't even seem like he took a breath before he was past it. "What are you going to order? I'm starving."

Kate had no earthly idea what the hell was going on with Lanie, nor had she any clue about her date. Aside from the fact that he was attractive-and he knew that all too well, which, in turn, made him far less so-she'd yet found anything about him of interest. In truth, she all but checked out entirely when she happened to catch him eyeing their very young waitress as she walked off for the kitchen with their order. She went with a salad. Nothing to cook meant a speedier exit from the whole disaster.

She declined dessert, told him she didn't drink coffee, which was actually something she could've used to help keep her from nearly falling asleep in her arugula, and left him standing at the restaurant's exit with a puzzled look on his face, as though he couldn't believe the night of fun had come to an end.

She didn't bother to call Lanie when she got to her car, who, as usual, was working at the hospital that night. She sent a text, instead, and left it at that. For an event not even worth discussing, Kate felt utterly drained.

"Never again," her message read. "By the way, my name is Kate, in case you've forgotten it, right along with everything I actually enjoy in another human being." Lanie would laugh, she knew. She did for a quick moment, herself. She also sent her love, because life was life, because she always did.

 **xxxx**

Cornwall wasn't the beach, but Rick didn't care. He'd been advised to get away, to go out of town, and that was where Kate was, and after listening to another Friday's radio show, he decided he only wanted to be there, to see her again. In point of fact, it was more like he needed to see her again, and how odd that feeling was.

He climbed into the car that Saturday morning with no plan other than to visit the bookshop. What he'd say or do when we got there, he had no idea. Maybe nothing. Maybe he'd just see her from afar and that would be enough, though she did have that voice. That voice was like nothing.

The shop had just opened for the day when he arrived, and he spent several long minutes pacing the sidewalk out front like an expectant father at the hospital awaiting his child's birth. He finally took the plunge when two women approached, and he ducked in behind the two, like having company inside might somehow work to mitigate his jitters.

Kate was across the room, standing behind the counter towards the back, his eyes finding her as quickly as they identified books. Her hair was pulled up in a messy bun atop her head-it'd been loose when he'd first encountered her-its errant wisps eliciting a soft smile and a curiosity about her morning. Had she slept through her alarm and not had time to blow it dry? Had she been out late the night before and simply left it as it has been? Had she come to work straight from the gym? As he deviated from the path of those he followed inside, he began to wonder how he might write it, and that was the first time he'd imagined writing something new since the book. He found comfort in that.

"Steven, you're back for another visit, I see," Kate said, somehow finding a way to catch him off guard, though he thought he'd been so closely watching. She said his name with a wink, much like that night on the radio, and it was enough to send his brain reeling. "We always appreciate our repeat customers, though I don't recall you actually buying anything the first time you were here."

She was ready to play, or so it seemed.

"Well, the guilt has been eating me up inside, so, yes, here I am to right that dreadful wrong. What could you recommend here in..." He swiveled around for a sign as to the section he was standing in, located one a shelf away. "Women's Studies?"

Kate chewed at her gums to try and stifle a grin. "Is that something you need help with?"

"If I had a Magic 8-Ball on me, I fear its answer might be 'All signs point to yes,'" Rick answered. "Maybe I'll just wander around, if that's okay."

"No problem, I'll be over there if you need me," she told him before she headed off, fidgeting with her hair as she went.

A short time later, the female duo that'd been his entry partner was gone, leaving Rick in the store alone with Kate and with a stack of he-didn't-care-what books in hand.

"Wow, you've swung wildly the other way, here. One book would've done it, but you've picked out six," she said typing each price into her register for a total. "Putting all that famous writer money to good use."

Rick nodded with her show of hand. "I kind of thought you knew who I was."

"I run a bookshop, Mr. Castle. It's my job to know authors." She began bagging up his buys, which included a book he was sure he already had multiple copies of and something by James Patterson, a purchase he swore he'd never make.

"I guess I'll speak for all of us and say we appreciate the personal touch. It's why I love places like this so much."

"Yeah, well, try not to let it go to your head. I've read things about you."

She said it like someone who knew his favorite boxers were filled with holes, like damage control was in definite order.

"That doesn't sound good for me. Any chance you might reconsider and let me take you to dinner, so I can have a chance to set the record straight about some of these things you've read? I mean, I don't know if there's already someone else or-he knew there was, of course. Dot had told him as much-maybe my book selection has entirely put you off, I don't know."

Kate looked at him with a lingering squint.

"Are you a punctual man, Mr. Castle?" she asked thinking on the recent train wreck that was her night with Jordan.

"If there was an award for punctuality, Ms. Beckett, I tell you I'd definitely come in second."

"Second, huh?" It wasn't the answer she expected, and she liked that.

"I don't want you to think I'm too cocky," he said taking his bag of books to neither an acceptance nor a rejection of his third invitation. "Okay, well, I thank you for your help." He turned and began his march of dejection towards the front door.

"I loved your new book, by the way," Kate called out after him. "And my number's in the bag."

He'd missed that happening at the counter entirely, and he continued out of the shop lighter than he'd felt in weeks.

 **xxxx**

He'd been there a just a handful of minutes, but Rick got in his car and drove straight back to the city on his high, leaving exploration of the bag for his arrival at the loft. Martha was home, busy gathering up her things for her impending time away, and she found him sitting at the breakfast bar in something of a state.

"You're smiling at plastic, Richard. You know I've been worried about you, but do I need to escalate to full-blown panic, here?"

"It's not the bag, Mother," he told her with a look. "It's what's inside the bag. I'll have you know that a beautiful woman agreed to have dinner with me, and she left her number inside this bag." He finally pulled it open and began to dig, came out with his receipt. Kate had written her name above the digits on the back of the tiny slip of paper, as though he could ever forget.

"And who is this beautiful creature that has you making goo-goo eyes at inanimate objects?" Martha said sipping from her glass of trip-preparation wine.

"I don't know, really. But I do know I've never wanted more to find out." His words weren't hyperbole for effect. They were entirely true.

"Well, I must say, it's nice to see this kind of excitement in your eyes again, darling." She leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. "That's all we want, you know, your happiness."

"Thank you, Mother."

"Okay, I'm off to rummage through my accessories before next weekend's adieu. One can never have too many. Go call that girl, kiddo. Life is short, no reason to wait."

Rick took her advice and did just that.

 _This is Kate. Leave me a message and I'll call you back_ , her voicemail message said after four unanswered rings, and he couldn't claim to not be disappointed.

"Hi, this is Rick...Rick Castle, in case you know a lot of Ricks. It is a very common name," he blabbered after the beep. "Anyway, I know I basically just left the shop, and I thought for all of two seconds about playing it cool and waiting to call, but I've come to realize that I don't really want to play games like that, anymore. So, Kate Beckett at 555-124-1319, I'd like to take you out, on the evening of your choosing, and I'd like to do it soon. You now have the phone number of a very famous writer in your log of missed calls. If you'd rather call him back instead of me, please know I will be very sad," he said jokingly and hung up, and he kept his phone close for the remainder of the day.

 **xxxx**

Kate closed up that evening and made an impromptu stop at Lanie's place on her way home. More than anything, she wanted to see the look on her face when she told her what she'd done, about how she'd given her phone number to a man she barely knew with the implied promise of more. That reaction was one she simply had to experience in person.

Lanie was surprised by the visit, mainly because their time together usually involved an actual plan, and because Kate knew she had to be at the hospital in a couple of hours to cover a coworker's shift. That didn't leave a whole lot of time for one of their regular hang out sessions.

"To what do I owe the pleasure of this surprise? You always call first," Lanie said as Kate took her usual spot on her sofa and tossed her messenger bag aside. "Thought I wouldn't be seeing you until next week, not that I'm complaining."

Kate took a breath and launched into it. "I did something, today," she said but that was all.

"Okay, am I supposed to guess what? I really have to get ready for work."

"No, you're not supposed to guess," Kate replied mockingly. "I gave my number to a guy who came in."

Lanie sat immediately. This was too good to be standing for. "You did what now? It can't possibly be what I think I heard."

"It was Richard Castle. He came back."

"It was _Richard Castle_? The sexy-author-of-a-man-you've-already-shooed-away-twice, Richard Castle? Girl, you have got some effect on men, let me tell you. What did he say this time?"

"He said he came in to buy something because he felt bad that he didn't the first time."

Lanie looked at her and cocked her head. "Lie. The man lives in Manhattan, you said. You think they ran out of books down there?"

"Maybe he was just passing through town, Lanie. I don't know. I didn't ask."

"Lord, I wish I could have me some wine for this," Lanie sighed. "But, you did give the man your phone number. So, what, you like him now? How long has that been going on?"

Kate reached for her bag and pulled out her phone. "He already left me a message. Want to hear it?" Lanie said yes without saying a word, and she played it for her on speaker.

"So, he's sexy and he'sfunny. If you don't call him, I might."

"One isn't enough for you, anymore?" Kate teased.

Lanie got back up with a stretch. "I'm just trying to make sure you get this done, that's all. Go, get the hell out of here and call the writer man. You deserve it."

"More than I deserve Jordan?" she asked with a grin.

"Do not even get me started. I said I was sorry and the wine's on me next week. What more do you want, my blood? Just make sure you text me and tell me what happens so I have something to look forward to on my break." Lanie walked her to the door and Kate gave her a hug. "I'm proud of you, girl. And the key to a good text is always _details_. Remember that."

 **xxxx**

"Hi, it's Kate," she said with the air of someone who'd made a call like that a thousand times before, yet her insides spinning with its rarity. She drove home from Lanie's, made herself some tea and toast after a hot shower and settled in, dialed Rick from the comfort of her bed. "Did I call at a bad time? You sound out of breath."

"No, it's not a bad time, at all. Now is perfect. What you're hearing is the aftermath of me tearing across my apartment because I left my phone in the office and falling flat on my face in the process. Worry not, though. I'm okay because the floor broke my fall."

Kate amusedly played out the scene in her head as he recounted it. "Just so you know, I'm not going to laugh now because that wouldn't be very nice of me, but I will as soon as we hang up."

"And just so _you_ know, the huge bruise on my knee really appreciates that, thanks," Rick quipped. "I'm just excited to hear your voice, and so soon, so now might be your best ever chance to say whatever the heck you want and get away with it, actually."

"I'll keep that in mind, thanks. You know, there is one thing I've been wondering about. Your girlfriend, Dot, has been curious about it, too."

Rick knew what was coming. There was no way it wouldn't ever come up. "Ah, Dot, my favorite gal, and you probably mean the name thing, right?"

"Yeah, I mean the name thing."

"I wish I had an answer that would somehow make me irresistible to you, but the only one I have is that I'm an idiot. I called in to your show that night and Steven was the first name that flew out of my mouth. I don't know. I was nervous and excited and I guess when that happens I become very stupid and forget my own name."

"Wow, Mr. Castle, that's a lot to ask of an answer. Don't be so hard on yourself, though. It wasn't entirely without charm, since I knew exactly who you were when you came into the store the first time."

Rick rubbed at his knee, where there really would be a nice bruise come the morning. "Thank you for that. I promise I'll try my best to I'll remember I'm Rick from now on."

"Well, that's good," Kate said with a bite of her lip, "because I think I'd like to give this Rick a shot, after all-maybe have some dinner with him or something. If he's still interested, of course."

Rick pumped his fist in the air to no one at all. "Oh, he's interested. He's very, very interested. Though, he wonders how many more books it's going to cost him."

"Been working on the funny, has he?" said playfully. "Better."


	6. Chapter 6

Kate chose Thursday. She had no idea why. Much like Rick's "Steven," it was the first thing that came to mind, so she said it. One minor issue, that was to have been her girls' night for the week, which, it turned out, Lanie expressed little concern about missing when Kate shared the reason. In fact, if Kate remembered correctly, the exact words used were: "Girl, you can't be serious. I love you and all, but I'm pretty sure I can go one week without you."

She wasn't ready to involve her father. She needed time for that-a lot of time. There needed to be something real, something secure, for her to feel comfortable allowing someone into that part of her life. Josh had always been there. He'd seen every bit of it, good and bad, but there hadn't been anyone else.

So, Kate suggested they meet at the store, instead of her house, under the guise of saving time. Thursdays were delivery days, after all, so an excuse came easy. She could change and get ready there. She'd made do with worse.

She kept thinking how incredible it was, the difference between how she felt inside in the days leading up to her date with Jordan and to this one with Rick. To be fair, she didn't know Jordan at all before that night, so he was already at a disadvantage, but she wasn't usually like this. She wasn't usually so hopeful.

Rick arrived at the shop early that night, which Kate appreciated, of course, and he made sure she knew it, tapping his wristwatch as though fishing for praise after their exchange about punctuality.

"Nice, right? Points for being on time?" Rick asked as the two met in the middle of the store.

Kate glanced down at her own watch, one her father gifted for her graduation from high school. "You're early, actually. I still have to finish up here _and_ get ready." She tried her best to sound inconvenienced, to have a bit of fun at his expense, but his response left her too flustered to keep the scene going.

"If this is how you look when you're not ready, my ability to participate in any sort of coherent conversation this evening is in serious jeopardy, and you will not be able to hold that against me because it's going to be all your fault." Kate just stood there, staring back at him, silently. "And all of that was a long and, from the look on your face, boring way of me saying I think you look incredible just as you are."

Kate finally managed to gather a few words together, but she found it a true undertaking. "You don't look so bad, yourself."

And that was just the first wild understatement of the night.

 **xxxx**

Rick had inquired about what type of food Kate most enjoyed when they'd arranged the evening, but he'd wanted to select the restaurant on his own. Since he wasn't familiar enough with the area to know of a place offhand, he relied wholly on the internet, and came upon a spot just outside Poughkeepsie that felt worthy of the occasion. What he couldn't possibly have foreseen when he called to make their reservation, however, was just how important that very Italian restaurant was to Kate and to her parents.

She didn't say anything about it to Rick when they pulled up, rather allowing the coincidence to settle quietly over her, but she was surely left shaken by the improbability of it-that man and now that restaurant. Kate had never been much for the spiritual, for believing in messages from a universe that'd so often been hard-hearted, but she couldn't deny, in that moment before she stepped out of the car, a part of her wondered.

"I'm sorry if this sounds strange, since we don't really know each other, but you have this look on your face like maybe you're sad about something," Rick commented once they were seated inside. He couldn't help but notice the rather swift change in her because his focus was thoroughly fixed. "I'm happy to take you somewhere else, Kate. Anywhere you want. I'm sorry. I probably should've just asked you beforehand."

Kate made a visual sweep of the room, one she hadn't visited in such a long time, and then proceeded to explain. "Don't apologize, please. It's just strange to be back here." She paused when their server approached to take their drink order-an agreed upon Cabernet-and then went on. "My mom taught at Marist, not too far from here, and this used to be her place with my dad. They'd always come here for special occasions or fancier nights out, and then, at a certain point, I started coming here with them. I can't tell you how many times I've been in this room."

"What does your mom do now?" Rick asked. How could he know? "Is she not at the college, anymore?"

She didn't talk about her mom a lot outside of Dr. Burke's office -unless someone asked a specific question about her, which wasn't a common occurrence-because that's where she'd grown to feel most safe to do so. She had Lanie, of course, and there was Josh, but she still carried in her a fear about engaging her father, because of the place her death had sent him, and though she'd learned from her time in therapy that avoidance was little more than a Band-Aid on a bullet wound, she hadn't yet found a way to let go of that trepidation.

"My mom died when I was in college, actually. She had cancer."

Rick's heart sank. "I'm so sorry, Kate. I wish I hadn't-"

"It's okay, really," she assured him. "I love this place. I have great memories of this place, and you couldn't possibly have known. Honestly, it feels good to be somewhere we spent time together."

"Well, then, thank you, Google." Their server returned with their wine and they toasted to familiar places and to firsts. "So, what about your dad? What does he do?"

Kate fiddled with her table setting. Dangerous territory. "My dad's retired. He's retired. But, tell me about your mother. She's an actress, right? That's a pretty creative family you've got going." Deflect the attention; she was well skilled at it.

"My mother, my mother, the actress, let's see. She's a lot of headaches is what she is," Rick said in jest, accurate though it was. "She's a lot of woman, but one of the few I'm blessed to still have in my life, and the she's the only one like her."

Kate picked up her menu and gave it a phony gander. "Two divorces, huh?" she asked off his remark, and he gave her a sideways eye. "Oh, I read all kinds of things, Mr. Castle, not just books."

"Two divorces, huh," he repeated, but as a statement of affirmation.

"Was either of them your choice?"

Rick nearly chuckled out his mouthful of wine. "Was that a polite way of asking if they were my fault? If so, well done." The two shared a smile. "I guess my answer would be I think there were a lot of things I could've done differently, both times, but I can't say I entirely regret either, especially the first, the one that gave me my daughter. I assume from the 'not just books' you know I have a daughter."

"That part's on your book jackets."

He reached out and tapped her hand with his menu. "Clever girl. Now, tell me, oh knowledgeable one. What should I try?"

Without a second's hesitation, she told him, "Any dish with veal. They're all incredible. Or, they were when we used to come."

"Okay, I like that thinking. I like that, indeed."

When their server came back to the table, Kate ordered first, Chicken Marsala, which earned her an eyebrow of surprise from Rick. "What happened to the veal?"

"Do you always do what people expect?" she asked relinquishing her menu.

"A mysterious woman. I like that."

That was the night's second wild understatement.

 **xxxx**

The restaurant was quiet on an average Thursday night, and the conversation never faltered as they awaited their meal, its delivery almost unexpected due to their immersion in the newness of one another.

"So, I've been sort of afraid to ask you this, because I might really hate the answer," Rick said, "but it's killing me not knowing, so here goes." Kate set down her fork in playfully dramatic fashion and met his eye. "Dot, my love, told me you were actually seeing someone, but you're here with me. And, okay, that's not really a question. How about, Kate, are you already seeing someone, as Dot told me you were?"

It could've been her easy out, her window of escape from the unpleasant and unwanted, but she didn't take it, because as difficult as it'd been for her to agree to be there, to take the chance, in that moment, she couldn't imagine any other place she'd rather be.

"I was, until recently, but not anymore." She noticed his expression change, slight as it was. "Is that an answer you really hate?" she asked with a grin in her voice.

"Not even in the ballpark. Now, get back to that chicken of yours. I can tell you're envious of my veal. I can see it in your eyes," he teased. "See what happens when you decide to zag?"

"You don't know me well enough yet to presume what's in my eyes," Kate lobbed back. "Maybe you should just keep _your_ eyes on your own paper."

Rick downed a sip of wine to prevent himself from choking. "Spoken like a woman with a teacher for a mother. I haven't heard that expression since I was a kid. I think my favorite part, though, was the 'yet.' Does that mean we can do this a second time?"

Kate dabbed her mouth with her napkin. "Rick-"

"Uh oh," he interjected already concerned by the tone of that one word.

She reached out and touched the back of his hand before promptly pulling it away. The gesture wasn't planned, but the contact born of its spontaneous execution had her momentarily abuzz, and it was a feeling difficult to ignore, despite what she was about to say. "It's not...It's just, I live a quiet life in a quiet town, and from what I know about you, you don't. I guess I just can't help but wonder how we even got here. I mean, why me?"

Rick adjusted his position in the booth to face her. "If I give you an honest answer, I worry I might scare you off, and that's the last thing I want to do."

She opted for humor, because that was a zone they'd been comfortably playing in, thus far. "More than the two divorces thing, you mean?"

He let the jab pass without comment. He understood what it was.

"Something happened to me that day, Kate. I wasn't even supposed to be there; all I did was pull off of some random exit from the interstate. But, I ended up on the sidewalk outside your bookshop, and when I saw you, I felt something, some pull to you, this total stranger of a woman, that I couldn't pass over. I don't know if that's something that happens to you often-from the little time I've spend with you, I get the feeling it isn't-but it sure as hell doesn't happen to me." He finished what was left in his glass and set it aside. "Have I scared you, yet?"

Kate mimicked his move with her own glass and returned but one word. "No."

Behold wild understatement number three.

 **xxxx**

Lanie called Kate at the shop the next morning to get the full lowdown on the date, after receiving a frustratingly brief text message about it from her while at work the night before. By the time she'd gotten to her phone during a break to read it, Kate had been long asleep, and the hours she'd spent waiting had her positively champing at the bit.

"Of course I didn't sleep with him, Lanie. It was a first date, for God's sake," Kate replied gruffly, her morning caffeine still working its way through her bloodstream.

"What, like that never happens? Come on, Kate. Did you make out, at least? I mean, this is a famous man you had dinner with. Give me something, here, girl."

A momentary silence ensued.

"We ate. We talked. We walked a few sidewalks. He kissed me on the cheek. That was it." There came no reply. "Lanie?"

"Oh, sorry, I must've fallen asleep for a minute out of boredom. He just kissed you on the cheek? After looking at that face of yours all night? Okay, what's wrong with this guy?"

"I think it's called being a gentleman, Lanie. We had a perfectly nice time. He dropped me off here for my car and he drove back to the city. He did leave me a message while I was on my way home, though."

Lanie hummed mockingly. "Did he ask you if you wanted to get together and knit next time?"

Kate shook her head with a smile. "Shut up, no. He did tell me my smile could launch a thousand ships." A blush crept up the back of her neck and caused a tingle.

"Sweet lord, he really is a writer, isn't he?"

"He gets definite points for the literary reference, obviously." Kate plucked his book off the sales table and glided her fingertips across its cover. "I like him," she said with all the power those words from her carried.

"I know you do," Lanie responded gently. She knew because she'd never heard those words from Kate Beckett before.

 **xxxx**

"Well, you got in late last night, darling. I'm not used to being in bed before you, these days," Martha said to Rick over Friday morning coffee. "Poker night with the boys, finally?"

Rick was floating on Cloud Nine, his brain utterly consumed by the sights and sounds of the night before and by thoughts of Kate. He was barely aware there was someone else in the room with him.

"Richard, are you all right?" she asked when she went unacknowledged. "Have you accidentally brewed the decaf again?"

"There's this thing she does," he said finally, apropos of nothing. "I don't even think she realizes it, but she bites at her lower lip and it's..."

Martha spun away from the coffee maker with the pronoun and came walking back across their divide. "She? Who exactly are we talking about? Ms. Phone-Number-on-the-Receipt?"

"Her name is Kate, Mother. And she's not like anyone."

She set down her still empty coffee mug and leaned across the counter towards him. "Is that what this look is?" He swatted her hand away when she pinched his cheek. "I don't think I've ever seen this look before. Does your dear old mum get any more details?"

"You know, I think I'd like to keep this one for myself for a little while, but if I'm lucky and I somehow manage to keep her around, I promise you will. Go off tomorrow and do your play, Mother, and when you get back, hopefully, I can tell you all about her."

"Be happy, Richard. Be a writer, be a father, and if this Kate is as special as you make her seem, be in love," she told him. "You're a good man, kiddo, and you deserve that."

"You're sounding pretty mushy this morning, Mother. Maybe you need the decaf."

Martha pushed away, grabbed her mug with an exaggerated sweep. "Har-har."

"I'm going to miss you while you're gone, you know," Rick said.

"Oh, please, you're going to love every minute of it and you know it," she said over her shoulder as she poured. "But that's lovely of you to say."

He wondered what Kate might think of his space, if the small-town in her could find comfort in his home. They'd had just one date, but those were the kinds of thoughts she'd already inspired.

 **xxxx**

Kate finally called Rick back after her radio show that night, waiting an amount of time she hoped might not make her seem too anxious, yet with enough hours passed to perhaps generate a modicum of excitement.

He picked up on the first ring. "Did you like tonight's chapters?" she asked without a formal hello.

"That's quite an assumption you've made, Ms. Beckett. This is a Friday night. You don't think a man of my looks and wit and charm would have plans? A date, perhaps?" He said it all with a smile. That was his first mistake.

"I think you heard every word," she said without a beat, like she was as certain about that as she was about her name. "The flowers are beautiful, by the way. You didn't have to do that, but thank you."

"It's not as fun when you have to, and you're welcome. I had a really great time, last night."

"I did, too," Kate said.

There was a rush that accompanied her attention, some definitive surge of endorphins he could attribute only to her, and though he knew he risked appearing overly eager, he couldn't help but want to be around her as much as he possibly could be.

"Come to the city and spend Sunday with me," he said more than asked. "I'd really like to see that smile of yours again, and we can have a picnic brunch in the park or something. I've never done it, but I hear it's a thing fine people do when the weather's fine."

"What time?" Kate found herself asking almost automatically.

"God, I love that question," he thought aloud. "How about you take a look at the morning train schedule, see what might work for you, and let me know. I'll meet you at the station with a basket in hand and, fair warning, probably a goofy grin on my face."

She was already imagining it, and enjoying it. "Will there be mimosa ingredients in said basket? I mean, if I'm going to travel all that way."

"What sort of respectable picnic-brunch-in-the-park thrower would I be if I didn't include mimosas? Already on the list," Rick assured her, knowing her question implied agreement. "And, hey," he followed to a wordless hum of curiosity. "You were right. I did hear every word."

 **xxxx**

Kate arrived into Penn Station by train late the following morning, Rick waiting there for her as he said he would be, and, yes, with a true picnic basket in hand, which he had to locate and purchase that morning-a task far easier said than done it turned out-along with everything he packed it full of.

The day was already warm and on its way to hot, but Kate wanted to walk the city's streets rather than zip around its tunnels underground. It'd been too long since she was last surrounded by its buzz, and her senses longed for a fix, a dose of familiar scents and sights and sounds that she could sip from until the next time.

They settled on a quiet spot of grass in the park, one not cluttered with sunbathers or soccer balls whizzing by, and Rick pulled a blanket out of his backpack for them to sit on, along with a small, portable fan to try and mitigate some of the impending afternoon heat.

"Roughing it, are we?" Kate teased as she watched him set the scene. "Do you bring a microwave when you go camping, too?"

Rick's mouth fell open in feigned offense. "No, I do not, thank you very much." He tugged the final corner of the blanket straight. "And that is because I never go camping. There's this whole part about bears they tend to conveniently leave out of the brochures. Sit, please," he said offering a hand.

"I'm guessing you probably do a lot of research for your books to be sure you get the details right? The facts?"

"I do, yeah. There's some research involved and…Oh, okay, I see what you just did," he said to a smirk. He unhooked the picnic basket's lid and flipped it open. "How about a mimosa to go along with that sarcasm? That is unless you prefer to rough it when you picnic and dig for water." Kate extended a silent hand and he passed her a plastic flute. "Classy, right? I'm working very hard to impress you-fake name, fake glass."

"Speaking of fake names," Kate said as he poured them each a drink, "is Castle really not your actual last name?"

"I'm going to try not to start worrying until you ask me for my social security number, and, yes, that is true. While my publisher enjoyed the alliteration afforded by my actual name-something about attractive marketing-I've always found it a bit grating, so I changed it for my work. Also, and you'll discover I'm weird like this, the first-and-last-name-that-both-sound-like-first-names thing gets to me, too. Richard Rodgers? I don't know."

Kate pushed the slip-ons from her feet into the grass and reclined her body flat onto the blanket. "I've already discovered you're weird," she told him playfully, "but here I am on your blanket on a Sunday afternoon in the park, anyway, Richard Rodgers. I wonder what that says about me."

"Cheers to that," Rick replied, and he angled slowly back beside her.


	7. Chapter 7

They left the park that afternoon once the crowd and the air thickened, with several hours still left to spend together as Kate's train from Penn Station wasn't scheduled to leave until just after 9PM, delivering her home less than two hours later.

Ice cream was her idea and Rick's treat, the least he could do after poking fun at her less than impressive Frisbee toss, when one landed next to their blanket and she offered to return it to its owners. Needless to say, it involved an apology, one she delivered with very rosy cheeks. They took their cones to-go and along for the walk back towards the loft, opting for a cab once they were through, primarily to escape the summer-Sunday heat.

Despite the retail invasion that'd notably altered its landscape, Kate had always loved the old architecture and cobblestone streets of SoHo, its creative vibe widespread and resonant, sort of on the breeze in a palpable way. And she was curious about the type of place that would draw in someone like Rick, if his home would reflect her young impressions of him, someone who, she was quickly learning, wasn't as she'd previously imagined.

"After you," he said moving aside to let her pass. "This is it. Welcome to Chez Castle."

Kate stepped through the door with her ice-cream-sticky fingers and her warm skin and stopped just a few steps inside to take it all in. She was accustomed to tall living, spaces that went up, not out, but his space was quite the opposite. Open was what it was, mightily unburdened by the common demands and limitations of city framework, and she felt it: she could breathe.

"This is incredible, Rick," she said as he closed the door behind them and walked slowly past. "I love this. Well, I mean, aside from the curtains."

He set the picnic basket and his backpack up on the breakfast bar and shot around. "The curtains? What's wrong with my curtains? They're Italian," he protested, as though the specification automatically denoted bulletproof taste.

Kate approached, lifted her own bag from across her body and set it down. "You're kind of touchy after you've eaten rocky road, you know that? I was kidding. They look great."

"I know I am," Rick said shaking his head. "I told you. Eating ice cream with someone else always puts me on edge-the whole flavor-regret thing. I swear, it happens every time. Sometimes my daughter actually pretends not to know me."

"I feel like I'd get along just fine with this daughter of yours," she said with a grin. "Hey, would you mind showing me where the restroom is so I can wash my hands? I promise I won't make any jokes about its decor."

He raised his arm and pointed. "Since you asked so nicely, I'll let you use mine-straight back into the office, hang a right into the bedroom and then make a left, and if there's a mess in there, Richard Rodgers did it, not me."

Kate headed off per his instructions. "He's that weird guy, right?" she said without turning back, and Rick chuckled.

"The one and only."

Once behind closed door, Kate hurriedly plucked her phone from her pocket, where she'd made sure to leave it handy, and she composed a text message to Lanie. More than likely, she wouldn't be awake yet to read it, but there was always a chance.

"At Rick's loft in SoHo - enormous and gorgeous - just walked through his bedroom to get to his bathroom." What the point of the play-by-play was, she wasn't sure, but sharing it felt exhilarating, if not surreal. She set the phone on the vanity and did her thing, washed the remnants of her cone from her fingers before retrieving it.

"First of all, does he have a gold toilet? Second, what's his bedroom like? Third, why the hell are you in his bathroom texting me about being in his bathroom?

"Later," Kate typed back. "Have to go. Love you," She gave herself a look in the mirror. _What the hell is going on with you?_ she asked of her reflection. _This is not you_. She tucked her phone away, again, never having read Lanie's reply:

"You better mean you have to go kiss the man. Love you, too."

 **xxxx**

Rick toured Kate around the rest of the loft and then put on some coffee, nothing at all like what filled her Smith's paper cup every morning, and refreshingly so. They sat together on the sofa and talked with reverence about the city around them, about visited places they had in common and about the possibility they might've passed by one another at some point or another without knowing they'd one day meet. For a city of eight million people, New York often felt remarkably small.

The conversation eventually found its way to his books-the handsome home in which they sat bought and paid for by their pages and chapters-shelves in his office sprinkled with them, Kate had noticed, among an impressive collection of many. They were spines and covers she'd held in her hands time and time again, familiar edges she'd traced as they'd stood pressed between the others amassed by her mother across her years.

"You should bring some of this coffee to Dot. I don't think she has any idea what she's missing," Kate said swallowing her final sip.

"Dot probably takes offense that this coffee even exists, and I'm sure she'd have no trouble telling me so, but I'm glad you liked it. I can brew some more if you want." Rick moved to get up, but she held him back. "If you change your mind, let me know. I know you have a long haul home. I'm sorry, again, by the way. I really should've come up to you with you having work tomorrow."

"I can stay out past 11PM, Rick. Really, I'll be fine. I told you I haven't spent time in the city in a while, so a few train rides are worth it. I guess hanging out with you was fun, too."

"Most fun I've had in the city in a long time, and I live here, so you should feel extra special," Rick said in whimsical tone. "I don't know what it is about you, Kate Beckett, but you make everything feel new." He instantly panicked, thought he'd said too much, and waved the comment off. "That probably sounded really stupid. I apologize. Forget I said that."

Kate didn't respond until she had his eye. "Can I say something now that will probably sound really stupid?" His words hadn't sounded anything of the kind, because she understood for herself the very sentiment he'd expressed.

"I'm pretty sure I've already won that category, but, please, you can say anything you want."

"I've read your Storm books-many times, actually-and they make me feel connected to something. In my life, I promise you, that's not a small thing. Obviously, millions of people read them and you know that. I just want to make sure you also know, more than that, they've been important to a lot of us."

"When's the stupid part coming?" Rick deadpanned.

Kate pretended to write herself a note on the air. "Enjoys flattery," she thought aloud as she did.

"From you I do," he told her excitedly. "What else have you got?" He shifted nearer and she watched him without commentary.

"I think I'll go ahead and save what else I've got for another time. I mean, this place is big, but if I tell you, I'm not sure with your rapidly expanding head we'd both still fit."

She could feel it coming, in the way he looked at her, in his nearness, and she waited with anticipation to find out how the inevitable would come to pass.

"I hope you aren't trying to brush me off with that sarcasm of yours, because all it does is make you even more attractive to me." There it was, again, that unconscious tug at her lip, and Rick nearly lost his words. "Is that what you're trying to do? And after I made you such delicious coffee?"

His knee accidentally tickled hers and she felt the sensation race through her. "Just out of curiosity, is this one of those weird things you do? Talk too much?"

His entire face crinkled. "Do I?"

"Right now you do," Kate answered and her eyes said the rest.

 **xxxx**

Kate really had no reason to feel the way she did after so many hours and years spent visiting his office, after so many secrets had already been shared, but butterflies still gently flapped their wings inside of her as she sat across from Dr. Burke on that Friday.

"And Rick? How is he?" he asked her as he had during their past few sessions, the calendar now settled over August.

"Fine, he's fine," she replied temperately, though hearing his name still managed to affect her in an appreciable way.

Though nearly two months had passed since they'd begun what it was they'd begun, the amount of time they'd actually spent together had been limited, both by the distance between them and Kate's schedule, and neither of those things was something easily worked around. But they were in it because there was something in each of them that neither had ever found in anyone else, and that felt greater than any of the obstacles that currently stood in their way.

"Okay," Burke replied drawing his eye back to the notepad in his lap.

For whatever reason, something in his perceived tone didn't sit well with her. "Okay, _what_?"

He raised his head most deliberately. He recognized that state of Kate very well. "Okay, Kate?" It wouldn't help the attitude, he knew, but it probably would work to get her talking about whatever it was that was bothering her.

She watched as he scribbled on that paper of his; she couldn't imagine what. She'd barely said anything at all.

"Is there a problem with Rick being fine? He can't just be fine?"

Burke set down his pen in his correctness. "Why don't you tell me, Kate. Is there a problem?"

It infuriated her that he always knew exactly what he was doing, especially when she rarely knew the same of herself, anymore. "He's different," she said taking aim at the fingernail she always leaned on for relief during her sessions.

"You're talking about Rick?"

Kate didn't answer directly, but rather went on. "There are so many things he still doesn't know, so he doesn't look at me the way everyone else does."

"And what way is that, Kate?"

"Like I have a dead mother and an alcoholic for a father and not much else," she responded roughly. "Nobody sees me, anymore." Her voice slid from hard to soft, like that.

Burke didn't speak right away, rather let her assertion hang between them to allow Kate a moment to breathe in its wake.

"Do you see you, anymore?"

She pulled her knees up into her chest. "I don't know," she all but whispered. "It feels easier with him, though, like maybe I could," she said moving back to Rick. "But…" She faded off, but she'd used a word Burke never let her get away with, and that meant there would have to be more.

"But what?"

"What if it only seems easier because we don't get to see each other very often, or because there are so many things we don't know about each other, or because I just fucking want _something_ to be easier for once?"

Burke leaned forward in his chair, settled his elbows on his knees. "And what if it's not those things, Kate? What if it's easier for the reason you've already told me? What if it's because Rick really is different? Is that a possibility you're going to be able to accept?"

 **xxxx**

Another anniversary of Kate's radio show had again come around, and as the station always did, they invited her listeners to a small get-together to celebrate the achievement, which was an event everyone, including the guest of honor, seemed to enjoy. With her requested Saturday night off from the hospital, Lanie would be there, and Kate invited Rick up from the city, as well-or, he more invited himself, really, and she went along for the ride. He had a knack in that regard.

Rick booked himself a room at a hotel on the edge of town for the night, in case the party spilled over into an after-party and went late, and because he certainly didn't want to make any assumptions on that front and get himself into trouble. They hadn't yet spent the night together; in fact, it was to be his first night staying up there at all, and that wasn't what the visit was about, anyway. It was about being there to support Kate in her success, and about the opportunity to spend more time with her at all, quite frankly.

"So, your dad still can't make it?" Lanie asked her for the second time in as many days, hoping the answer might be different. "I feel like I haven't seen him in ages."

"He wasn't feeling up to it, today." It was an answer she'd given more times than she cared to remember. "He told me I have to bring him home some cake, though." Kate pulled into the station's lot with Lanie in the passenger seat and parked in her usual spot, which had kindly been left unoccupied. She killed the ignition and pushed back against the headrest. "I know this thing is usually pretty fun every year, but if I could, right now, I'd rather-"

"Take that man of yours into a room alone?" Lanie interjected with a pleased wink in her voice. Her excitement at learning Rick would be joining Kate for the festivities had been fuel for a week's worth of comments and teasing about sex between the two-or lack thereof, as it were, and it seemed that still wasn't over.

"Do you ever think about anything other than sex?" Kate asked turning her head in Lanie's direction, and the look she received in return was worth a thousand words.

"And what would you know about it these days, girlfriend? How's that battery supply of yours? Maybe I should buy you some more as an anniversary present."

Kate's face lit up with a smile and they both started laughing. "Love you," Kate said. "Behave yourself with Rick, tonight, got it? No third degree, no sex crap, and please don't talk about my dad. It's not-"

It was finally to be their first meeting-her best friend and her…Rick-and that didn't come without a bit of pressure, given Lanie's outspoken distaste for Josh.

"Kate, relax. I got it. I do know how to behave myself, you know," Lanie contended popping open the car door. "Now, remind me, there's booze at this thing, right?"

Kate rolled her eyes and climbed out of the car after her. "I hope you're getting a good laugh out of her, at least," she looked up at the sky and asked of her mom.

"Is the writer-man here, yet?" Lanie hollered back across the row of cars parked alongside Kate's.

Kate took a quick peek around but didn't see Rick's car in the lot, and in that moment, her mind flashed to him, off somewhere alone, waiting for her in the hypothetical room Lanie mentioned, and a pulse of warmth charged through her. That was a seed that could definitely help get her through the next few hours.

 **xxxx**

Kate didn't see Rick come in, and he relished the opportunity to stand back and watch her from across the modest but busy room. It was filled with friends, some known to her and some not, he imagined, but all there in celebration of a part of her she'd chosen to share, one that helped find him on the verge of the greatest fall of his life.

"Can I just say that Google does not do you any justice, at all?" Lanie sidled up to him as he stood lost in his reverie, recognizing him from any number of the searches she'd performed on the internet in his name. "You are a very fine man," she continued to gush as he gazed off into the room, "and you are not hearing a word I'm saying." It was Kate, of course, encircled by a group of admirers, who had his attention fixed. "That girl's something, isn't she?" she asked assuming there'd be no reply.

"I can suggest some excellent websites, if Richard Castle photos are what interests you," he came back with full awareness of every word. "And, yes, she definitely is something." He still hadn't torn himself away from Kate, who finally managed to spot him through the crowd and to make her move towards him.

"What are you two grinning about over here?" Kate asked inadvertently brushing against Rick's hand with her own.

"You," the two replied in unison prompting a shared look.

Rick angled for her cheek and pressed his lips there. "You look beautiful," he told her with the softness of a secret, and she curled her fingers around his.

"And you look ready to leave," Lanie chimed in. "I saw Stanley corner you over there. Girl, if that man was forty years younger, you'd have to watch yourself. He is nothing but trouble."

Rick's head darted around the room. "Stanley, huh? Someone I need to worry about?"

Kate squeezed and he opened his fingers, allowed hers to slide in between. "The only person you need to worry about here is this one," she said, tilting her chin in Lanie's direction. "Thinks she has to protect me all the time."

Rick looked directly at Kate and thanked Lanie earnestly. "Well, it seems your guardian has already checked me out thoroughly on the interwebs, and the only thing she's been able to uncover is that I'm far sexier in person, which I'm sure you'd agree with, so I guess everyone's pretty safe, here."

"Ooo, you have got your hands full with this one, girl. I can already see that, and you'd-"

"Lanie," Kate interrupted, "I haven't seen this one in two weeks, so I'd kind of like to talk to him now-alone. Maybe you can go find some more of that fancy boxed wine. Josh really went all out."

"Fine, I mean, I'm at this thing for you, but whatever. Let me tell you, though, if I go out there and run into _Jo_ sh, there had better be a cheese plate around to distract me or this party could take a turn."

The two had all but forgotten she was even there, caught up in the welcome proximity of the other. Kate had already found Rick's lips by the time Lanie walked off, and it suddenly didn't matter who else or how many others were in the room. "I'm glad you came," she said finding separation, but as little of it as she could.

"If I'd known this kind of reaction was waiting for me, I would've literally driven over the other cars to get here sooner." He slid her hair off her shoulder, cupped the smooth of her neck. "Have I told you how beautiful you look, yet? Your beauty is so distracting, I can't seem to remember."

"You feel like getting out of here?" Kate asked eyeing the door around his shoulder.

"Hey, you say it and I'll do it, but…" He paused when he realized all eyes in the room were now on them. "I think you're going to have to stick around a little bit longer. Looks like the troops might be waiting for you." He took her by the shoulders and maneuvered her body around, earned a wave from Dot, which he reciprocated. "I'll be right here waiting," he whispered in her ear, and sent her off.

 **xxxx**

"I enjoyed that, thank you. They really love you, you know," Rick said, leaving the rest of the crowd to close out the shindig, his hand wrapped around hers as they snuck off in his car. Kate had slipped Lanie her keys and told her to drive her car home, that she'd come for it later, and she'd done so in a way that Lanie had understood exactly what her intention for that night had become.

"They're wonderful people. I'm very lucky that they let me do what I do. And, just so you know, Dot was the one that really wanted you there. All she ever talks to me about, anymore, is you and your big tips."

Rick pulled his hand free and pinched her bare knee, made her body jerk in the seat. "That spot always gets Alexis, too," he said with an amused chuckle. "Listen, I'm not sure which one of us should break the news to our favorite diner gal, but my tips, big or otherwise, are all being saved for you from now on." The light just ahead turned red and he came to a stop at the line. "Is that…Are you okay with that?"

Kate let her head fall gently to the side, so he was able to see her face in what little light from the street they had. "I'm okay with that," she said. "I know it wasn't the kind of party you're probably used to, but it meant a lot that you were there."

When the light finally turned green, Rick didn't move. "So, co-pilot, where to? I'm still new to this town. Where would you like to go?"

She said nothing at all in response, not verbally, anyway, but he heard her still, and he drove.


	8. Chapter 8

"Okay, so, a SoHo penthouse it is not," Rick said as he dropped his hotel room key onto the desk inside the door and took a first sweep of his home for the night. He hadn't checked in before the party and really didn't know what to expect, not that there was much to be done about it at that point, no matter what he found waiting for him. "I wanted to be close. There wasn't a lot available out here in the 'burbs at the last minute. Shouldn't all the tourists up here be in tents or something?"

"Don't be a snob, and you can practically see the city from here," Kate tsk-tsked settling herself at the foot of the bed. "Besides, it's just for one night, and it has everything you need: a toilet, a bed, and did you see the vending machine down the hallway? It has Milky Ways in it."

Rick slipped out of his jacket and his shoes and made a beeline for the bed, diving across the empty space behind her and creating a mattress wave that nearly tossed her onto the floor. "Caramel fan, Ms. Beckett? Yet one more thing we have in common," he announced with pleasure. Kate still hadn't turned, and he tossed one of the pillows at her back. "And though you mock, I forgive, because you know I can resist neither your sarcasm nor a well-stocked snack machine."

"Lanie likes you," she said out of nowhere sounding thoughtful.

The declaration perked Rick upright, and the bed shook, once again, with his motion. "She said that? I mean, not that I'm all that surprised. I am a likeable guy."

Kate finally looked back over her shoulder. "Less so when you brag about it," she admonished. "But, no, she didn't say anything to me. I can tell, though. I'm sure I'll get an earful tomorrow."

Rick's tone changed, then, as he flashed back to the station, to the effect she seemed to have on everyone in that room. "You move people, Kate. Do you realize that? Do you feel that?" He inched forward until he was able to reach out and touch her back, still allowing her space. "Up until tonight, I'd only heard it through the calls at the end of your shows, but it was very real being there with them and actually feeling it. It's like some kind of quiet superpower."

Her body slowly came around and she tucked her legs up at her side. "When my mom taught her classes, I swear, Rick, you could hear a pin drop in those rooms. Her students were completely immersed in her. Our calendars were different, so if I had a day off from school or something, I'd take the bus over there and sit in the back and listen, and I didn't care what book she was talking about, I just wanted to listen to her voice."

He reached out his hand and she took it. "That's you for me, for us. That's your show and it was that room, tonight."

"Thank you," Kate said softly and leaned in for his lips. "But, honestly, right now, I don't really feel like talking, anymore."

She pushed up onto her knees, clutched the fabric of her skirt in her fingers and slid it up her thighs so she could move into him with greater ease. Once she made contact, Rick drew his arms around her and held her at the back, guided her over his legs and down onto his lap.

"Are you sure? Here? Kate, I didn't get this room because I expected-"

Her hands found his cheeks and she kissed him deeply. "Here has Milky Ways," she said in jest when they pulled apart.

"Ah, the caramel, of course." He gladly played right along. "There is that. Who needs luxury when they have caramel?"

Kate's smile quickly turned into something much more. "And here has us," she said before there were no more words.

 **xxxx**

His cheek rested flat against her belly, rising and falling with her breath as it fought to regain its center, while her fingers twisted lazily in the muss that'd become his hair. The taste of her remained on his lips, the sweetest dessert of a feast of desserts that began and ended with the delectation that was her body, and he already wanted nothing more than to drift those few inches and start anew.

"Sure you're okay?" Kate asked with audible amusement.

Rick exhaled something of a snigger of embarrassment. "My bones are. I think my ego might need some time, though. It's already been walking with a limp."

"At least you made it memorable for me."

He rolled and kissed her naked skin. "Are you saying if I hadn't fallen off the bed, I'd just be another man on another Saturday night?"

Kate clenched his hair in her fist and tugged on it gently. "Maybe, uh, Frank, was it? I can't keep all of you straight."

Pushing up onto all fours, he leaned in for her ear. "Oh, trust me, you definitely keep me straight," he whispered clearly pleased with his brand of innuendo. She pulled him in and kissed him hard, and he dropped to the pillow beside her. "Tell me what you're thinking right now," he said as his body settled against hers.

"I'm thinking about what the person in next room must've thought when you hit the wall."

Rick bit her shoulder and she squirmed. "Stop. Tell me, and then I'll tell you."

"This isn't some kind of elaborate author sex game, is it?"

"You wish," he quipped.

She tugged his arm across her chest and held it against her. "Fine. I'm thinking that I'm scared."

"Scared? Why? Not of me, I hope."

Kate hesitated, wondered if she should take it back, brush the admission aside, but it was already too late for that. "Not of you, Rick, no," she told him with a squeeze. "I'm scared because I feel happy, and happy hasn't been a very big part of my life for a long time. With everything that's happened, I guess it's just hard for me to trust it."

Rick drifted onto his back and guided her body along with him so she was atop his. "I'm scared, too," he confessed surprising even himself. "It's amazing how difficult trusting something good can be isn't it? That seems really unfair. But I know I want this too much not to try. I want you too much. I hope it's okay for me to say that. God, I don't want to scare you more."

"I'm glad you said it, and I want you, too," she said punctuating it with a kiss to his chest.

"Best words ever. Now, please come up here and kiss me, so I can tell you what I was thinking about."

He was thrilled the nightstand light was still on to illuminate the adorably confused look on her face.

"That wasn't it?"

"Actually, my thought was about you and caramel," he began, his body supplied a jolt by the mere fancy, "and the sounds that angelic voice of yours might make if I pou-"

Kate broke in without need of more. "So, this is an elaborate sex game, then. Maybe best to save that for a hotel room you haven't already abused," she said with a grin and then came for his mouth.

 **xxxx**

Rick didn't have to be checked out until 11AM, so they took advantage of Kate's Sunday off and allowed themselves to sleep in. Her body ached deliciously-unaccustomed as it was to what came of such unrestrained hunger for another-as she watched him in the remaining moments of his slumber, and somehow he sensed her eyes on him, because he spoke his first words of the morning without ever opening his own.

"I don't know how I do it, either. I just always look this good when I wake up." His voice was gravelly, alluringly so, despite having uttered the sort of remark that would normally have earned him a roll of her eyes, at best. "I'm not sure I can actually move, but I feel incredible."

"So do I," Kate whispered at his ear, inspiring his eyes open.

They worked to focus and settled on her, and he was instantly and powerfully roused. "Fuck, I can't even think of a word for the way you look right now, but I can promise you it's in the book with all the good ones. I almost feel inadequate."

Kate slid her hand beneath the sheet and down his bare body until she found him, more awake than she expected to. "You shouldn't," she said and he flinched with the contact. "Trust me."

"Be gentle with him," Rick pleaded. "He's still recovering." She released him again with an exaggerated sigh. "But don't go far. He's also remarkably headstrong."

The room was still bathed in shadows, though the hour was beyond nine, and the soft whoosh of air from the register was like a blanket of white noise keeping the sounds of the outside world at bay. Neither of them said anything more for a time, yet they remained entwined both in body and mind, following a night that'd both answered questions and inspired new ones.

Kate shifted, finally, rearranged her position so her chin was perched at his ribs and she could see his face. There was a faint slant of light across his pillow, its fall almost purposeful, and she felt certain he'd never appeared more beautiful to her.

"Are you okay?" he asked because of that moment, because of everything in the hours before that'd led them to it.

She drew her hand across his chest and curled it beneath him. "I am. I'm more than okay. Are you?"

"I've been much more than okay since the minute I first saw you. I just wish there could be more of this."

He reached out and tucked her hair behind her ear and she leaned into his touch. "More, huh? I thought your friend down there wasn't ready, yet," she teased knowing well what he'd meant.

"Well, if you shift any more to the right, this conversation is going to be over, I can tell you that." He shivered purposely and Kate giggled. "Hey, on the topic of more, do you have any plans for Labor Day? Is the shop open?"

"As a matter of fact, I have that weekend all to myself every year," Kate replied cheerily. "Merle and Margaret are always in town for their huge family gathering over Labor Day, so they usually watch things on Saturday. Why? Were you hoping for a holiday book sale or something?"

"Cute, and please remind me to send them a nice fruit basket in honor of your freedom, but, no, I was hoping you might come out to the Hamptons with me-or us, actually. My mother and Alexis will be there, too. They're both returning from their adventures this week, so it'll be a welcome home/end of summer getaway. I'd love for them to meet you; I mean if it's not too much, too soon."

Kate definitely felt herself react to the suggestion, but not in a negative way, as he clearly imagined she might, offering her an out. "It's not too much. I think it sounds nice. I just…can I let you know? I need to check on something, first." There was her father to think about, and that wasn't a simple obstacle for her. An afternoon or a day alone was one thing, but she hadn't been away from him for an entire weekend since she'd come back home, and being so now, as he was, would require some contemplation on her part.

"Have to ask your boyfriend? What was his name again-Stanley?"

Kate slowly maneuvered her body on top of his, positioned him where she wanted him. "You feel good when you act jealous." The burn in the muscles of her thighs reignited with her angle, but she made no effort to adjust. "How about a little game? How about whoever finishes first forfeits the last Milky Way?" He'd snuck out to the vending machine in the wee hours, wrapped in the bed's comforter, and bought them a few bars, the one that remained still sitting on the nightstand.

"Then get ready to go down," Rick replied with a pompous crack of his knuckles.

Kate pushed one leg out behind her and made her downward move. "Oh, I'm way ahead of you," she said, and all she heard next was a gasp.

 **xxxx**

"I just told him I was going to a friend's house at the beach for a couple of days, okay? I'm sure he won't even ask about it, but."

Lanie had offered to drop by Kate's place while she was away to check in on Jim, under the pretense of returning something she'd borrowed or some other such fib. It was the only way Kate had felt comfortable agreeing to accept Rick's invitation for the weekend, and it helped to alleviate at least some of the worry about leaving him alone for, really, what would amount to less than three days.

"You really should tell him what's going on, Kate. You don't think he'd want to know that his daughter is falling in love?"

"Lanie-"

"Are you really going to try to deny it? With me? Come on, Kate, we both know it's true. You've never been like this before."

It was true, she hadn't, but love wasn't a word she and Rick had yet exchanged, and no matter how good Lanie was at reading her, the first time Kate did use it in relation to her relationship with him wasn't going to be on the phone with her.

"I just want to have this for a little while, Lanie, this tiny bubble of happiness that doesn't have any of that in it. I know I have to tell him and I know I have to tell Rick about him, too, but you have no idea how good it feels to have something just for me for a change-something that makes me feel like this does."

"Except, Kate, you're all of those things," Lanie said in gentle challenge. "You're your mother's death and your father's drinking and your feelings for Rick, whatever they are. You're a hundred different things every day, and some of them, by no fault of your own, aren't pretty, that's true. But the one thing you're not really being is you, Kate, not if you're keeping such important parts of yourself from people you care about."

"I know." She'd heard the same from Burke, not that she needed him to tell her, either.

"No one's life is perfect, Kate. We all have our things, our people, our whatever." When Kate grew silent, she knew the conversation was over. "Just remember I love you because of all of yours, not in spite of them, okay? Now, I know I'll be sleeping, but text me when you get out there, and make sure you get a lot of sun…and sex, and don't worry about your dad. I've got you. I've always got you."

"I know you do. And I love you, too. Thank you, Lanie," Kate said and she hung up.

 **xxxx**

"Richard, you've wiped down the counter four times, already. I'm fairly certain it's clean," Martha told him setting a maternal hand upon his restless arm. "You really must relax, darling, honestly. She told you she was on her way. She'll be here."

It was to be the first meeting of girlfriend, mother, and daughter, and no one looked more forward to it than Rick, his energy that Saturday morning as he awaited Kate's arrival bordering on obnoxious.

"I just want everything to be perfect," he explained reaching for his phone for any sign of further contact. She'd elected to drive out to the house that morning, though the others had made the trek the previous afternoon. "I want her to like it."

"Dad, have you ever known anyone who didn't love this house?" Alexis chimed in. "It's straight out of a design magazine, and if you don't calm down, you're going to scare her like you're scaring us." She and Martha shared a giggle as he turned to his phone yet again. "He's hopeless, Gram," she stated without garnering any reaction from Rick at all.

"Hopelessly in love," Martha beamed with a playful nudge to his ribs, when he pivoted suddenly and took off. "Ah-ha, I do believe the woman of the hour hath now arrived."

"If not, I don't know what the heck to do with him," Alexis said, the two following, arm in arm.

They stood at the front door as Rick helped Kate from the car, and watched as a very public display of affection played out before them. He had her backed up against the passenger door-and very willingly so-with hands in hair and bags at their feet.

Martha cupped her hand in front of Alexis' eyes, and she immediately swatted it away. "Gram, stop, I'm fifteen. You think with him as a father I haven't seen worse?"

"And from the look of it, you'd think he hadn't seen her in months. It's barely been two weeks. I'd say your father is really in it, kiddo. Come on. Let's give those two crazy kids a minute alone." She spun Alexis around by the shoulders and they headed back inside.

Several minutes later, Rick and Kate came wandering in, hand in hand, her bags over his shoulder. Martha walked directly up to Kate, pulled her free of her son, and threw her arms around her in a hug.

"I'm the mother," she said. "I'm sure Richard has already regaled you with countless tales, and I'm here to tell you that only 98 percent of them are true." Kate laughed and Martha relinquished her hold. "My word, you're a gorgeous thing, aren't you? Those eyes are positively…You know, I've always wanted to try a green contact lens and-"

"Gram," Alexis interjected in an effort to put a halt to what had taken a turn towards blabber. "Hi, I'm Alexis, the daughter." She extended a hand and Kate did likewise, Rick smiling on beside her. "We're happy you came."

"Very happy, indeed," Martha concurred. "Perhaps the fifty-cent tour might be in order, Richard? Alexis and I can get some snacks and things prepared to take down to the pool if that works for everyone. They say it's supposed to be a heavenly day"

"Well, I'm happy to be here, thank you for having me," Kate said, "and it's great to finally meet you both. Rick talks about you all the time."

"Mimosas for the grown-ups?" Martha asked them with a clap of her hands.

Kate and Rick turned to one another and exchanged a look of silent agreement. "Mimosas sound great, Martha, thanks."

"Very well. You two go and have a look around and Alexis and I will handle things in here. Come, Alexis, let's away to the kitchen."

Rick, who hadn't managed to do anything except make goo-goo eyes at Kate during the entire exchange, swiftly took her by the hand and led her away, and in less than a minute's time, he had her upstairs in his bedroom and around his waist.

"What took you so long?" he panted between tastes of her lips.

"It's not even 11AM," Kate pointed out in defense. "How much faster did you want me to drive?" She sampled the skin of his neck. "Put me down or you're going to throw out your back." He dropped her onto the end of his bed, and she tugged at his shirt to get his mouth back. "Do we have to do the rest of the tour right now?"

"Are you kidding? I don't ever want to leave this room again," Rick responded around a hum of pure bliss, and then Kate crawled back on the bed, pulling him by his belt loops, right along with her.


	9. Chapter 9

"We do hope you've enjoyed your tour of Chez Castle 2.0. If so, please feel free to tip your guide on the way out," Rick joked as he looped the ties on his bathing suit and pulled them tight. Kate was still naked on the bed before him, propped up on her elbows, her eyes not yet through feasting on what the rest of her body had just devoured. "If you don't stop looking at me like that, we really aren't ever going to get out of this room." He lowered his knees to the mattress and leaned over her, kissed the silk of skin between her breasts.

"You started it, Ritchie Rich," Kate retorted. "I only paid for the ticket to see a linen closet or two."

"Hey, watch it with the nicknames, and is that a complaint? Are you complaining, because it sure didn't sound like it when you were whispering my name in my ear a few minutes ago?"

He threw her a sassy eyebrow and she smiled. "I missed you," she confessed, but euphorically so.

"I kinda got that." He stole another kiss and pushed off the bed. "Come on, put your suit on and let's go out to the pool-bubbles and brie await us."

Kate climbed from the bed and fetched her bag from the floor, where he'd abandoned it on their way in. "Alexis is beautiful, by the way. I didn't have a chance to tell you before what with your tour-guide tongue in my mouth."

"You're feisty, today," Rick told her as he eyed her every naked move. "I approve, and I thank you for saying so. I like to believe I had a little something to do with it, but I'm afraid her mother gets most of the credit. Redheads do have a way."

Kate found her suit and stepped into the bottoms-green, a shade all but created for the honey of her skin. "What?" she asked him as she settled the top's halter around her neck. "Is this okay? It's all I had. I don't get to the beach much, so I haven't bought a new one in ages."

Rick walked over and clasped the back for her, the brush of his fingertips setting her skin alive with goose bumps. "It's perfect," he said with a taste of her shoulder. "Now I just have to figure out how the hell I'm supposed to remain a gentleman in front of my mother and daughter with you wearing it."

She spun in his arms, dropped hers over his shoulders and around his neck. "Here's a little something to hold you over," she said and kissed him mercilessly. "If you can behave yourself out there, I brought a present for later."

"I love presents for later," he beamed hugging her against his body. "And, in case you couldn't tell, I missed you, too."

 **xxxx**

They hadn't been off that long on their supposed tour, less than an hour, really, but the girls had already gone, leaving a note behind on the kitchen counter to tell them so. Rick grabbed some extra beer and water, just in case, and the two made the walk across the back lawn to the pool, finding Alexis already in the water and Martha hidden on a chaise lounge beneath the sun hat that never seemed to stop growing in size.

"You didn't wait for me, Alexis?" Rick let his towel drop from its position pressed between his elbow and his ribs, sounding every bit the wronged school playmate.

"The sun's hot, Dad, and we had no idea if you guys were ever going to come."

Martha snickered beneath her brim and Rick jumped in before she could throw in her, no doubt, highly inappropriate two cents. "Of course we were, and it hasn't even been an hour. Besides, you had your grandmother's hat to sit under. That thing could shade a small country." He took his beer and water and headed for the pool house in a pout.

"I'm sorry, Alexis," Kate said. "It's my fault." Martha turned her attention most interested. "Once I get talking, it's hard to shut me up."

"Talking, were you?" Martha chimed in, her suggestion glaringly transparent.

"Gram, cut it out," Alexis shot back.

"Who's cutting what?" Rick asked having no clue what he'd missed.

"Just get in the pool, darling," Martha said as she flipped her magazine with one hand and sipped with the other. "The goodies are all set up back there in the pool house, Kate, if you'd like to help yourself. The bubbly is particularly bubbly this morning."

Before they knew it, Rick was mid-air and in full cannonball form, colliding with the water and sending it shooting every which way.

"Thanks, Martha," Kate said as she brushed the spray from her cheeks. "Anyone need a poncho while I'm in there?" The three girls shared a chuckle when Rick popped up at the edge of the pool entirely unapologetic about the scene he'd left in his wake. "Want a drink, Flipper?" she asked him.

"I'm good, thanks," he replied and pushed off on his back with Alexis in tow.

"Martha?"

"I get myself another once I dry off a bit, thank you," she answered with a shake of her hat.

Kate wandered off to the pool house and poured herself a drink, her eye pulled unexpectedly by the wall at the opposite end of its long-more-than-wide design. She recognized immediately some of what she saw hung there as she approached, but the rest was new to her. Sprinkled among framed covers of Rick's published books were photographs of him with Alexis and with Martha, all moments seemingly captured at the very house that was their home for the weekend.

The years represented varied widely, that fact most apparent in a growing Alexis, but the expressions on their faces remained a constant. There was joy in their family, palpable joy in their time frozen, and before she realized it, Kate's eyes began to well up with tears.

"Kate, is everything all right?" Martha asked having snuck in behind her without her knowing it.

Kate let her eyelids fall shut, wiped away the single drop that trickled out from beneath. "Sorry, Martha, I am, yeah. I just got caught up looking at your photographs." Martha came and stood beside her, her face flush with pride. "You have a really beautiful family."

"Believe me, kiddo, I know how lucky a broad I am." She put her arm around Kate's shoulder and pulled her in. "I don't want to overstep, but I was terribly sorry to hear about your mother. The way Richard talks about you, wherever she is, I'm sure she's incredibly proud."

"Thank you, Martha. I hope she is." Kate pointed to one of the photos and laughed. "God, look at that one and that huge wig. He really is a character," she said of Rick decked out in full Seventies regalia.

"I can't argue with you there. Richard is certainly one of a kind. He's said the same of you, you know, not that I'm making any sort of attempt to interfere," she quickly added. "He'd surely have my head."

Kate could already see them, similarities between son and mother rising to the surface, despite having spent so little time with the latter. They shared a distinct fire, a zest that radiated and pulled like a magnet, one that made it impossible to resist being near.

"Rick is wonderful. I find more and more reasons why every day."

"Well, I will drink to that, darling. Let us grab our glasses and get back out there before there's no water left in the pool for us to enjoy."

They walked back out together, arm in arm, Rick smiling softly at Kate as they passed. He still couldn't quite believe what a matter of mere weeks had brought, and he ducked below the surface to make sure he wasn't dreaming.

 **xxxx**

Having spent the majority of the day by and in the pool, they all came inside to clean up before dinner, Rick with an order already phoned in for an Italian spread to be delivered later on. He'd be cooking for all of them the following evening-steak and chicken kebabs on the grill-so no one objected to something simpler to kick off the weekend.

"Okay, La Parmigiana should be delivering around 7:15PM," Rick told Alexis as Kate waited for him out on the back steps. "They already have my card, but take this for the tip, just in case." He reached into his wallet and pulled out some cash. "Kate wants to watch the sunset from the beach, so we're going to go for a walk, but we should be back around the same time the food gets here. Have your grandmother open a Cabernet for us, and then please make sure she saves some for us."

"Got it," she said with a salute, and Rick kissed her on the forehead. "Are you going to take Kate to the spot?"

"I thought about it. If it's okay with you."

"Yeah, it's okay."

"Thank you, sweetie. We'll be back," he said and he went off to find Kate.

The house didn't have direct beach access-the small price paid for his panoramic view of the ocean-so they ducked out the side gate and down the road a bit to the ingress point and made their way out to the sand.

They both kicked off their flip-flops and took them in hand for the walk, the sand comfortable with the warmth of the late hour's sun, their free hands pressed together and locked by woven fingers. Most of the day's beachgoers had already abandoned their posts, leaving behind a modest crowd there to savor the final moments of Saturday light, and they found their desired line down by the water in the gentle roll of the incoming waves.

"Have you ever thought about living out here full-time? It's like a little corner of paradise."

"You think so? The city lover wants me to move to the 'burbs?"

Kate nudged him in the side. "Don't say it like that. The 'burbs have done just fine by a lot of us. And, I don't know. There's just something about the sound of the water and the open air that always gets me."

"I know what you mean, I do, but besides the fact that I love the loft, I'm completely head over heels for the force of the city and what it gives me creatively. I'm not sure I could find that same spark here. Maybe in time, though. I don't think I'd ever totally discount it, not when it gifts nights like this."

"The city's your muse, huh?"

"Sometimes. Sometimes she is." He squeezed her hand and changed their course. "Here, let's go this way. I want to show you something."

They crossed back up the beach towards the dunes, the waning sun almost directly at their backs, and they stepped through a narrow opening in the fence line where Rick settled them among the tall flags of beach grass. He curled his body around hers from behind, his chin at her shoulder, his lips at her ear.

"Alexis found this spot during a walk one night when she was younger. She happened to notice the gap in the fence and came running over, curious Castle kid that she was, and when I caught up to her and got her turned back up towards the beach, this really cool thing happened. If you're down here a bit like we are, when the sun gets low, it looks like it's sitting right on top of this dune, and I swear it's like you can just reach out and touch it. That's how close it feels."

Seeing the two of them together, hearing Rick and Alexis' stories, Kate couldn't help but have her father there with her. They didn't have dunes or costume parties or pool traditions, but they had their own things, their own _them_ , and the absence of that from her life hurt just as much as the absence of her mother-sometimes even more so because he was still there with her, under the same roof every day.

"You're a great father, Rick. She loves you a lot. I can see that. You're like this little team of two, small but mighty."

He angled his head and kissed her neck. "I want to…" he began to say but cut himself off, though having already managed to pique her curiosity.

"What? Why did you stop?"

"I haven't really pushed because I got the feeling early on that you didn't want to talk about it, but I have wondered about you and your father. You haven't said much about him at all. But, please, tell me to butt out and I will. The last thing I want to do is upset you."

Kate chuckled because she couldn't help it. "You'll butt out, just like that?"

"You don't know me," he insisted playfully.

She pinched the arm he had wrapped around her waist. "No, I know I haven't talked about him, and that was a choice I made-not a great one, if you ask Lanie or my therapist, but."

"Kate, really, you don't need to tell me. Believe me, I understand, as someone without a father, which I'm not even sure you knew because, now that I think about it, we haven't talked about that, either."

"It's been a really hard part of my life for a long time, Rick. You know, when we lost my mom, I thought we'd be able to help each other through it. I thought even though it felt like I was drowning, I was the thing he could cling to and he'd be the same for me, but it turned out I just wasn't enough."

Rick held her tighter but didn't say a word, let her have the time to be as she needed.

"By the end of the third month, he was drinking so much I barely recognized him, anymore, and then they forced him to take a leave from the job, which made everything so much worse. He was a cop in the NYPD. I can't remember if I told you that or not."

"You didn't, no. That's amazing."

"It was, and scary sometimes, but I always remember feeling really proud to tell people what he did. My aunt helped me a lot back then. Without her, I don't know where either of us would be."

"Has he ever tried to get any help?"

"He did, eventually. I'm still not sure how I convinced him then. I wish I knew so I could say the magic words again." She took a moment, then, let the breeze dance across her face. "He was shot the day before the third anniversary of his return to the force-almost completely shattered his leg and his hip. He loved being out there on the streets so much, Rick. It was all he'd ever wanted to do. And then that was taken from him, and he went right back down that hole. I left school after the shooting and moved back home to help him, and that's what I've been failing to do ever since."

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," Rick whispered in her ear over and over again.

"I hope you never have to know how much it hurts to miss someone who's sitting right next to you."

Rick shifted just enough to be able to see her face. "Hey, look at me," he said with a stroke of her cheek. "I wish you wouldn't carry that around with you. I wish you'd never spent one day believing that. There is nothing about you that isn't enough, Kate, and if it'll help, at all, I promise you that I'll remind you of that every single day."

She leaned into him, set her forehead against his. "I want him back."

"I know you do. If I could, believe me, I would do everything in my power to make that happen." He kissed her lips softly. "And I'm so honored that you shared this part of you with me. I know it wasn't easy. Oh, hey, look," he said abruptly interrupting himself. The sun had all but made its exit, and he'd caught it just in time for her to experience what it was he'd brought her to that special place for. "Awesome, isn't it? It's like it's ours."

Kate reached out her hand because it was true, because it felt that close. "It's really beautiful."

"So are you," he said, his words never more genuine.

 **xxxx**

"What's on the agenda for tomorrow, kids?" Martha asked as they all worked to finish the slices of cheesecake that'd accompanied the evening's meal. "A beach day, perhaps? A bit of sand between the toes?"

"Anything where we get to wear our suits all day works for me," Rick replied eyeing Kate with an implicit wink. "We can go over to Klyde's for pancakes in the morning, if everybody wants. They should be open, even with the holiday."

"Yeah!" hooted Alexis, expectedly so. It was one of her favorite things to do when they were out there.

"No can do, darling. You'll have to count me out," Martha said. "You know darn well if you don't get there before 9AM, you can't get near the place, and before 9AM and vacation do not mix. Besides, if you want to me to be able to fit into my bathing suit for the day, I don't think a buttermilk stack is the best way to accomplish that."

"Not that anyone can actually see your body beneath your hat, Mother, but okay. Kate, pancakes?"

Martha let out a _Pfff_. "Please, with that figure, the woman could eat an entire pancake factory, and should, quite frankly. Get a bit of meat on those bones."

Rick surveyed Kate unapologetically, thankful for the tacit sanction. "I'm in," she said, "and I'll have an extra for you, Martha."

"Attagirl. Now, unless you'd like me to stay and straighten up in the kitchen, Richard, I shall bid you all a good night."

"Go ahead, Mother. I've got it. I guess we'll see you when we get back from breakfast."

Alexis got up from the couch, just behind Martha. "I think I'm going to go up, too, Dad. I want to call Brooke and see what she's doing tomorrow."

Rick began gathering up everyone's dessert plates. "Meet downstairs at 8:30AM, sweetie?"

"Sure," she agreed and pecked him on the cheek. "'Night, Dad. You too, Kate."

"I had fun today, you guys. Thank you," Kate told them both as they set off together. "Goodnight." She uncurled her legs and pushed up out of her chair. "I'll take these two," she said grabbing her plate and his and trailing him into the kitchen.

As soon as she set the plates down on the counter, Rick grabbed her in a kiss, one far more suited to a bedroom than a kitchen, but she met him with equal fervor. "I'm not sure I can handle you in that bikini for another whole day. Speaking of which, did you see how good I was today? I feel like I definitely earned that present for later."

"You're just like a kid sometimes, you know that?"

He picked her up and set her on the counter, moved between her legs and held her firm. "I'll take that as a compliment, thank you. Hey, wanna play a game?" he continued, cementing her previous observation.

Kate pushed her fingers through his hair. "Let me guess. Is it called The Give Rick His Present game?"

"I take back what I said before. Maybe you do know me."

The adorably anticipatory expression on his face was more than she had the restraint to fight. "First we clean. Then we present." His arm suddenly shot straight up like he was a student in a classroom and she was the teacher. "Yes, Mr. Castle?"

"How about first we kiss, then we clean, _then_ we present."

Kate used her mouth to answer, but it wasn't with words.


	10. Chapter 10

Rick readied for bed first and climbed beneath the sheets in wait of Kate. She still hadn't unveiled the present she'd now promised, and his mind, at that point, was off like a speeding train, fantasizing any number of scenarios that involved her coming into the room from the bathroom wearing this, that, or the other, and quite honestly, any of them would be the greatest of gifts.

He set an alarm on his phone for breakfast in the morning, clicked on news story or two, and listened, again, to Peter's recent voicemail message asking him which island he'd chosen to run away to and when he might see some of the new book ideas. Rick hadn't called him back. He still didn't have any book ideas, and Long Island probably wasn't the island he'd had in mind when he'd suggested the getaway. It was a war for another day; Rick didn't know which.

He heard the door open, finally, and Kate walked through wearing the black t-shirt she'd swiped from him after their night together in the hotel, one that'd never looked half as good on his body, and one he couldn't wait to slide off of hers in deliciously deliberate fashion-inch by inch.

"Every single room you walk into is more beautiful with you in it. That is a true fact," he said setting his phone aside.

"A true fact? You mean like the true facts in your books?"

He straightened up, set his back against the pillows. "If you're going to insist upon mocking me, I'm going to insist that you give me my shirt back."

"Right now?" she purred climbing onto the bed beside him. "But I thought you liked the buildup."

He set his hand, faceup, on the mattress, an unspoken request for hers, which she granted. "Hey, are you okay after our talk out on the beach? I know we were kind of interrupted by the stuff with the sunset, and I don't want you to think you have to leave things where they were if-"

"I'm fine, Rick, really. I feel relieved, I guess, or maybe I don't know the word for what I feel, but you don't have to worry about me. There will be more; I know that, but not tonight."

"I'll be here whenever there is."

"I know you will," she said with a gentle squeeze of his hand.

"So, then, do you want to make out or something?"

Kate half laughed and his enthusiastic grin abruptly faded. "Does that mean you changed your mind? You don't want your present?"

"Well, I guess I sort of hoped that was it, or part of it, at least."

She moved into him with his disappointment and straddled his lap, her eyes focused on his mouth, his lips. "You can have that anytime, though. That's not a present."

His hands glided beneath the cotton that cloaked her and along the skin of her back, parked themselves at her waist, just above the line of lace they found there. "It is from where I sit," he said.

Kate gave him a quick peck for the compliment. "Must be nice to have words come so easily. Wish I had some of that talent of yours." With that she pushed herself off of him and slipped from the bed. "Don't go anywhere. I'll be right back."

"I like the sound of that," he called after her as she headed back into the bathroom, returning seconds later with a book in hand. "What's that? The Kamasutra?" He laughed, she didn't. "I was kidding-mostly."

The book no longer had its dust jacket wrapped around it, so Rick didn't recognize it as his own as she stood there. That was purposeful, of course, Kate's attempt at surprise. She didn't have his kind money or resources, years of hints dropped about things he fancied that she could draw upon, but she knew very well of one thing that made him happy, both because he reminded her often and because it was a large part of the reason she was standing there at all.

"This is what I brought for you." She took a spot on the bed, again, but at the foot rather than at the head where he was, so they could more easily see one another. "I wanted to read something that's special to me, and I thought you might like that."

Rick leaned in, his body language already a clear indication of her accurate assumption. "You know how much I love listening to you, whether you're talking or not. Do you want to…" He pulled back the sheets from her side of the bed.

"I'd like to be able to watch you, actually," she told him. "That's going to be my present."

He readjusted and found comfort, settled in. "Can I just tell you before you start, in case I haven't said it, yet, how happy I am that you're here with me and that there's nowhere else I'd rather be?"

Kate smiled softly and opened the book, but not to the beginning, rather to somewhere closer to the end. She offered no context, no hint of what was to come, and she began to read, seemingly, in the middle of a page, in the middle of a paragraph, of a sentence, of a thought, yet Rick recognized the words after but a few. They were his words, the words he'd created that'd been ridiculed and scoffed at by so many since he'd sent them out into the world, and she was delivering them back to him with a level of tenderness that had him nearly in tears in an instant.

Rick's head and his heart swirled as he hung on every consonant and vowel, their eyes meeting intermittently for a taste, and after just the turn of a page or two, she closed the book as nonchalantly as she'd opened it. Neither spoke right away, and he could see that something had happened inside of her, that she'd been affected, though he couldn't imagine to the extent he was.

"Kate, why did you do that?" It wasn't anger or accusation in his voice, rather curiosity that was his first course. Outside of school, no one had ever presented his own work to him like that before, and certainly not with the power she had.

She set the book aside and crossed her legs, the largeness of his shirt draped over her far smaller frame exposing a bare shoulder with the shift. "Did you like it?"

Rick released an indiscernible noise of disbelief at the mere existence of the question. "I have the world's most beautiful woman sitting on a bed three feet from me, wearing my clothes, and reading to me in a voice most voices on the planet would envy. No, Kate, I didn't like it, I loved it. I'm at a loss for words, honestly."

"All evidence to the contrary," she replied lightly. "You were surprised. Your face changed really quickly, though. It only took a few words for you to realize. That was the best part for me."

Rick had to sit up to continue talking. He wasn't sure why-some swell of energy, maybe-but he did. "Believe me, I'm still surprised, but listening to you, I've told you, it does something to me, like you with your mom. I just get lost in it. You still haven't told me why, though."

"The first time you came into the shop, you asked me about this book. It was sitting on a table display near the register. Do you remember that?"

"Are you kidding? I remember everything about that," he said. "You told me you hadn't read it."

"And I asked you if I should, and you told me you didn't know. Why did you say that?"

His brow crinkled. "Why did you tell me you hadn't read it?" he asked in an attempt to turn it back around.

"If I give you an honest answer, will you give me one?" Rick nodded once in acquiescence and she went on. "I told you I'd read things about you, and there are people who've found your ego, let's say, healthy. I was just curious what your reaction would be to someone who hadn't read the famous author's book. I wanted to see how you'd play it, and it turned out it wasn't the way I'd expected."

"You thought I'd be a pompous jackass about it, I see," he chaffed. "I get it. That's probably fair. I've been known to toot my own horn from time to time, and it hasn't always been cute."

"You think it has been sometimes, though?" She smiled and received the same. "Your turn. Honest answer."

Much like Kate with the topic of her father, Rick had somehow managed to tiptoe around the reality of his book for the better part of three months. Maybe it was intentional, maybe it wasn't, and maybe it was more one than the other, but there it sat on the bed with them, now, and avoidance wasn't an option.

"Are you sure you don't want to make out, instead?"

"That comes later," Kate said without a beat.

Rick reached out and she passed it over to him. "I haven't held it since I was in the shop that day." His eyes traveled its line, up and down and across. "Did you know there's a bookbinding museum? It's out in California, only one in the US, actually." He tickled his fingertips along the book's exposed buckram cover and savored the sensation. "I've always thought it would be cool to see that."

"I'll go with you," she told him, and she meant it.

"This was the most difficult thing I've ever written, Kate. This collection of 267 pages, and I didn't do a minute's worth of research, I didn't use a whiteboard or write an outline or even scribble on a notecard, I just typed. I typed in the middle of the night and late in the morning and in the shower and riding around in cabs; even when I wasn't actually at my laptop, I was still typing. It was exhausting, and it was consuming. It was one of the best and worst periods of my entire writing life… and then no one cared. Wait, most people didn't care. The ones who actually attempted to read it thought it should be lining trash cans."

"Hey, don't-"

"Have you read what people said? Have you gone to those websites and scrolled through the paragraphs of reviews they left? I mean, shit, even my publisher asked me to bring Storm back from the dead."

Her voice was firm-not hard, but absolute. "I don't care what people said, or about your publisher, or about any websites. That's not why you wrote that book, Rick. I know it's not. No one writes that book in your hand for any other reason than they're completely in love with the art of writing and with their story, and if you were never to put one more word down on paper as long as you live, I would be honored to read it over and over again."

She went to him, then, and Rick welcomed her into his body and held her, his book pressed somewhere in between. He hadn't truly released it, yet, so much of what'd built up inside him during those early weeks when cold reality had come knocking. He'd been carrying a burdensome chip on his shoulder; that was certain, but the sadness was the heaviest weight, and in her embrace he suddenly felt lighter.

"Thank you for saying that," he whispered at her ear, his arms wrapped around her tighter still. "God, hearing you read it was so incredible."

She angled and pressed her lips to his neck. "It's all beautiful, but I love those pages. I can feel them. That's how I know it's different."

"That's how I knew you were different," he said, pulling back but not relinquishing his hold. Kate silently raised both of her arms into the air, her eyes locked on his. "What are you-"

"I'm giving you your shirt." His fingers found the hem, and he drew the fabric along the curve of her body until it was free of her. "Be proud of what you created, Rick. I am."

"Are you going to read me some more?"

She used the position of her knees at his sides for leverage to guide him down to the pillows. "Not right now," she said in a breath.

 **xxxx**

Klyde's was hopping that morning with the holiday influx, Rick, Kate, and Alexis tucked away against the wall towards the back. Alexis and Brooke, her friend who'd been invited to tag along, sat across from the two who, while certainly present physically, seemed to be off in their own world somewhere, but adorably so, so they'd repeatedly been told.

Kate reached across her plate and plucked a chunk of cantaloupe off of Rick's, neither batting an eyelash, and the teens turned to one another for the umpteenth time since they'd all been seated.

"It's only been two months?" Brooke asked Alexis, attempting a subtlety that failed miserably in its execution. "They're like the cutest old couple I've ever seen."

"Old?" Rick objected, and Kate giggled around her mouthful of fruit. "And it's been almost three months, thank you."

"Sorry, Mr. Castle." Brooke's face turned a bright shade of pink as she worked to hide it behind her mug of hot chocolate.

"You guys have finished each other's sentences at least twice already this weekend," Alexis chimed in in aid of her embarrassed friend. "It might as well be three years."

Rick set down his coffee. "Okay, can we maybe try not to scare Kate off on this trip, please? It's already some kind of miracle she's here with me, at all." Kate gave his thigh a squeeze beneath the table. "How about we all just finish our breakfast so we can get out to the beach and have a day?"

"What, so the only time I get to see you is over holiday weekends in the Hamptons, now?" came a voice from outside their circle. "We do live in the same city, you know."

Rick snapped his head to his left and found Paula standing beside their table. "Paula, hey," he said, surprised yet casual since his period of avoidance had long since come to an end. "Yeah, I guess Memorial Day was the last time."

"You writing or what?" Paula never wasted a minute of time.

"Nope," Alexis answered for him, in case he'd had other plans.

"Not the way to a happy agent, Rick," Paula said. "And who's this?" She looked Kate up and down in swift assessment.

"Kate, Paula. Paula, Kate," Rick said as though hoping he wouldn't need to say much more. "Paula's my agent, obviously."

Brooke jumped in all of a sudden and made her own introduction. "I'm Brooke, Alexis' friend."

Paula spent about half a second on the girl before beelining back to Kate. "Yes, I am the agent, and Kate is…"

Rick slid out of the booth and took her by the arm. "Why don't we go outside and talk. We'll be right back. Alexis, if the check comes." He tossed his wallet on the table and led Paula away.

"She's new. Gorgeous, of course. I expect nothing less from Rick Castle."

"She's not that new, Paula."

Her hands hit her hips. It didn't take long. "So, she's what you've been doing instead of writing? You used to be better at multitasking."

"You used to be better at not being a pain in the ass," Rick quipped. "Look, I met her a few months ago after I dropped Alexis off at camp. She runs a bookshop in Cornwall. She's simple and she's complicated and she's like no one I've ever been with before, and I'm-"

"Yeah, I know exactly what you are. You've got the same thing in your voice as I do when I talk about my new Chanel bag. Is this finally the one or what?"

Rick had known the answer to that question for a long time. "I'm going back inside, now, Paula. I'll call you when we get back to the city," he told her giving her nothing.

 **xxxx**

"Anybody else need anything?" Rick asked, stepping into his flip-flops for the walk back to the house. They'd all been out at the beach for a few hours after returning from breakfast, Brooke having left the group for plans previously made, and they'd already run out of the water in the cooler.

"Grab me the stack of magazines off the counter if you would, darling," Martha replied in request. "This script for my audition has me bored to tears. Watching the sand is more interesting, at this point."

Rick pulled on his cap and grabbed his keys. "Music to a writer's ear, Mother. Anyone else? You sure?" Kate and Alexis both declined and off he went.

"I think I'm going to go for a walk. Anyone care to join me?" Kate wrapped her towel around her waist and tucked it tight.

Alexis jumped up right away; Martha didn't move an inch, and the two wandered off towards the waterline. The tide was low, and the small pools it created in arbitrary pattern along the exposed ocean sand were warm with the afternoon sun. It was their first time spent alone together, girlfriend and daughter, and Kate found herself surprisingly nervous on the unfamiliar ground.

"Your dad said you had a great time working at the camp this summer."

"Yeah, I did," Alexis said, stopping to examine a hermit crab scurrying past. "It was the longest I've ever been away from home, and I know that was hard for him, but it'll look good on my college applications and I met a lot of cool people, so. Did you ever go to camp when you were younger?"

Kate let out something of a laugh. "No, I wasn't really a camp kind of kid. I was always happiest if I was in some quiet corner with a book in my hand." They wandered out a bit further into the water, let it break at their ankles. "I'm sure he probably told you I lost my mom when I was about your age. I didn't really want to be away from my dad much after that."

"He told me. I'm sorry. I can't imagine what I'd do if something happened to one of my parents."

"It must be hard that your mom lives so far away. I guess you don't get to see her very much."

Alexis shrugged. It'd been so many years of flights for long weekends and scattered weeks out of school that she'd really just accepted that was how it would always be. "I don't, no, and it is hard, sometimes, when all my friends have their moms around for stuff."

"Yeah," Kate said reflectively. She understood perfectly.

"I'm sure my dad would strangle me for saying this, but he really likes you. I mean, I know that probably sounds stupid, like something a kid would say, but I just haven't seen him this happy in a long time, and for me and for Gram, that's everything, so thank you."

Kate stopped, and Alexis, too, beside her. "You don't need to thank me, Alexis." She pushed her toes into the sand and reveled in the simple pleasure she didn't get to enjoy often enough. "I don't think I've done all that much, but I'm glad you think he's happy. That's what I want for him."

Alexis crouched and dipped her hands below the surface of the water. "I know I just met you and everything, but it seems like you're pretty happy, too," she told Kate, who let a quiet moment pass before her equal response.

"With him I am."


	11. Chapter 11

Kate closed up the bookshop that Friday night right at 6PM and left things as they were for her return in the morning. She had to be at the radio station for her show in a couple of hours, but there was a stop to be made first, a quick return home to make sure everything was ready-whatever ready meant when your boyfriend was coming to stay for the first time and would be meeting the father you'd managed to keep a relative secret from him for months.

She'd been more open about him over the past few weeks, made an effort to include him in conversation since her share in the Hamptons, and with her affection for Rick only growing stronger with each passing day, she'd begun to feel that keeping the two most important parts of her life separate was a true disservice to all of them.

"I'm not a child, Katie. You don't need to treat me like one," Jim said as she rushed around him, fidgeted with this and that, inconsequential things. He was perched in his chair, as he usually was, with his favorite glass in hand and the TV set to the talking-head chitchat before the Yankees game.

"All I asked was that you clean up if you make something to eat, Dad. I wasn't treating you like anything but a host. Rick's coming home with me after the show and I'd like this place to look nice when he gets here, that's all."

Kate had been living under a weight since she'd told him about Rick, one she'd long ago set upon her own shoulders but that now carried greater heft with her father's admittance, because though he was happy for her and had expressed so, he'd also taken opportunity to needle her with guilt for not including him sooner, as though, he'd charged, she was ashamed to have him for a father. But it wasn't him she was ashamed of. It was and always had been herself for her failure to succeed in pulling him from his darkness.

"What is he, the clean police?" He chuckled, more vodka than triumphant humor. "Go read your books, Katie. Let me watch my game. I promise I won't spill anything on the carpet before Sheriff Tidy gets here."

Before she left for the station, she went into the bedroom and changed her clothes, said a few words to her mother, as she did in moments of solitude. She was often Kate's lone source of strength, between those walls, at least, and on that night she needed a healthy dose. What might come of the following hours, she didn't know, but she was certain she couldn't get through it on her own.

 **xxxx**

Rick dropped Kate a text message on his drive up to let her know he wouldn't make the start of the show due to an accident on the interstate, but he managed to arrive shortly after, one of the station's interns guiding him back to the booth where he found Kate already deep into _The Great Gatsby_ , the novel of the hour.

He stood and watched from beyond the small room's glass, Josh at his post across from her at the desk, and he waited anxiously for her eyes to drift, to notice him there. He had a plan in the works, one she knew nothing of, one that was grand in scale and difficult in execution, given the scarcity of her free time, but one he hoped worth the effort, and seeing her for the first time since the idea had planted itself in his brain had him buzzing.

"Can I get you a water or anything?" the intern returned and asked a few moments later. She seemed shy all of a sudden, Rick thought, her voice soft to nearly a whisper, and he politely declined her offer. "I don't mean to bother you, but I was wondering if I might be able to get your autograph, Mr. Castle."

It was at that same moment that Rick caught Kate's eye, his attention suddenly pulled between the two. "Um, yeah, sure, but it's Rick, please." The young woman smiled at him and he smiled at Kate. She handed him a pen and pad and he asked her name, scribbled a note beneath it and returned them both to her, Kate, unbeknownst to him, catching the full exchange. "Thanks for reading, Serena. I appreciate it."

"Oh, I'm Sophia. Serena's my mom. She loves your mystery books or whatever," she replied. "She'll love this, thanks." Turning on one foot like a ballerina, she glided away.

"Or whatever," he repeated after she'd gone, and he turned his focus back to Kate.

 **xxxx**

"Nice to meet you, Josh," Rick said upon Kate's introduction of the two. They hadn't managed to meet at the station's gathering for her anniversary, which, quite frankly, Kate had been just fine with. "She puts on a great show. I'm sure in no small thanks to you."

"Don't let her hear your say that," Josh said, though Kate was standing right beside them. "Speaking of hearing, I wish I could say I've heard a lot about you, Rick, but Kate hasn't said a word."

Kate knew exactly what that flyby was. That was Josh not wanting to be with her, but not wanting anyone else to be with her, either. "We're going," she said, her tone conveying more than any words could. She curled her arm around Rick's and pulled him off with her, left Josh there alone.

Out in the parking lot, they stood at Rick's car, her back pressed against his door as he kissed her for the first time in too long. "Well, that was fun," he said savoring the taste of her on his lips.

It was sarcasm, of course, a thing she recognized well. "Are you talking about Josh or Sophia?" She rolled her thumb across his lower lip and cleared away the sheen she'd left there. "It looked like you and she had a nice little moment before."

"Hey, that wasn't what it looked like, and also, if I tell you this hint of jealousy you're displaying is kind of turning me on, will it get me in trouble? If so, I'm not saying that at all."

"That's probably best." She tucked her hands into the pockets of his jeans and encouraged him back into her. "Besides, I know she just wanted an autograph for her mom. She asked me earlier if she could ask you. I just like to see you squirm a little."

"You're a cruel woman. Now, when do I get to see this childhood bedroom of yours?"

Kate's head angled back against the car and she closed her eyes. "We're going to the house right now. It isn't too far, just follow me."

"Is everything okay?" Rick asked because her reaction screamed otherwise.

"My dad wasn't in the best shape when I stopped home before the show. I'm just…I don't know what I am. I want this to not be a disaster."

Rick cupped her cheek, kissed her forehead. "Please don't put this pressure on yourself, Kate. Whatever happens, I'll be fine, and I'll help you be fine. We'll do this together." She nodded a subtle nod, one he imagined was only for his benefit. "Go get your car. I'll follow you."

"When we get there, just pull up and park out front."

He left that. "We'll do this together, Kate," he told her again.

 **xxxx**

The ballgame was over by the time Kate and Rick arrived at the house, the TV, left on but apparently abandoned, now set to the local news broadcast. It was on unnecessarily loud for the space, and Kate hurried to rectify that before she even set down her bag, Rick standing near, his eyes examining and absorbing the home where she'd, thus far, spent the majority of her life. That, in itself, was no small thrill.

"Sorry, he must've gone to up bed," Kate said of her father. She set her bag against the wall and Rick's beside it. "He was supposed to wait up."

Rick heard something in her voice and wrapped an arm around her waist. "It's okay, maybe in the morning." Kate knew the likelihood of that, but she didn't tell him so. "I'm sure you're probably tired after your double-duty day, but do I get a quick tour, maybe? I'd love to see your favorite room, at least."

"Of course, yeah. Are you hungry or do you want something to drink? I'm going to put on some water for tea, I think."

"Tea sounds good to me."

She wrapped her fingers around his and led him into the kitchen, the lights there also left on, which came as no surprise. There were three bottles of beer on the counter, two of them empty and one nearly so, and a pot with soup left in it on the stove. Her jaw clenched at the sight, only because she'd asked, only because it was one of the rare times she'd specifically asked him for something.

She set immediately to cleaning up, pouring the remaining soup and beer into the sink and rinsing the bottles for the recycling bin, and Rick could clearly tell by her movements and her silence that she was upset.

"Let me take care of the tea," he said and he grabbed the kettle from the stove. There were mugs hanging from hooks beneath one of the rows of cabinets, and a marked canister below them which held the tea bags, so he was easily able to gather everything on his own.

"One fucking night," Kate fumed. "All I wanted from him was one night, Rick."

He set the as yet unfilled kettle on the counter and stepped in behind her, her hands clutching the edge of the sink so tightly her knuckles were white. "I'm sorry, I know. Hey, turn around, look at me." She did, reluctantly, and he saw the tears in her eyes. "You're such an incredible woman for being here with him and doing everything you're doing. Please don't worry about tonight. I'm with you and that's all I need."

Her forehead settled against his chest and he stroked her back. "I'm glad you're here," she told him. "I'm sorry it's only for a few hours."

"If you needed me for five minutes, I'd come. You know that. Let me put this water on so we can go explore in the time we do have."

Kate held him and didn't move, not right away.

 **xxxx**

It was Kate's favorite room in the house, the room Rick alluded to earlier, and other than her bedroom, it was the place she spent most of her time. The scent of her mother still lingered there, even after all the years she'd been gone, so Kate always kept the door shut to help preserve that small part of her, everything within left exactly as it was the last time her mother had been there-frozen in happier time.

"You weren't kidding. Mama Beckett definitely loved reading," Rick marveled at the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves that lined nearly the entirety of all four walls. "And let me guess. That was your spot over there."

Kate took a few steps towards the corner and gently kicked the large bean bag chair set out on the floor. "It _is_ my spot," she said dropping into its cradle. "I got it for Christmas when I was nine, and it still fits. Go check out the third shelf over there." She pointed towards a set of photos in frames propped up along the far wall.

"And it's still adorable, I see. Was this taken when you got it?"

"Just about, yeah. I moved it in here right away. It never spent a day in my room," Kate said with welcome nostalgia. "This room was where I always wanted to be. Actually, when we were all in the Hamptons over Labor Day, I was telling Alexis about how I never went to summer camp because the only place I ever wanted to be was someplace quiet with a book in my hand. Behold someplace quiet."

Rick crept along the wall to his left, scanning the rows of books as he went, many of them familiar and many of them new to him. "Hey, wait a second, I've heard of this guy." Not wanting to disturb a scene that'd been so thoughtfully safeguarded, he turned to Kate and pointed at what he found rather than remove it from the shelf. "These David Storm books are supposed to be pretty good."

Kate freed herself from the grip of the bean bag and came over for a look. "I think you mean _Derrick_ Storm, and, yeah, they're pretty good. You can find them in almost any airport, so that's gotta say something about them, right?" she teased, her mood seemingly lightened already, just by being there.

It pained him to watch her go through what she was going through with her father, now that he was aware of the reality, and though he'd gotten a glimpse of only a very small part of it, Kate already felt so much a part of him that he couldn't help but be affected by it.

"Oh, so…" He leaned in, pretended to examine the book's spine more closely. "You like this Richard Castle guy?"

She closed her arms around his waist and smiled. "Usually," she said.

And suddenly it hit him, right then and there. It wasn't something he'd planned, not for that moment on that night in that place, but he knew it and he felt it as sure as anything he'd known and felt in his life. She was letting him in, slowly but surely-first with the truth of her father and now into her world of home, into the bubble she shared with her mother, the person she loved most-and the power of it, as he stood there in her arms, inspired his heart to take a leap.

"Well, this Richard Castle guy loves you," Rick told her, "all the time, and he wants you to know that."

It took a moment for it to land, like she wasn't sure he'd actually said anything at all. "Rick-"

"Kate, I didn't say it expecting to hear anything in return. I said it because every time I talk to you or see you, it becomes harder and harder not to, especially when I see you in a place like this, and because it's the truth- _my_ truth." He kissed her on the forehead. "I'm going to go get us our tea, and when I come back, maybe I'll read you a little something for a change. I'm excellent with pop-up books, if you've got any of those lying around."

She watched him walk out of the room and disappear, her head spinning. As if he hadn't just said everything, already.

 **xxxx**

Rick snuck out of the house with her early Saturday morning, no sign of Jim to speak of, she on her way to work and he on his way to meet Lanie for a secretly arranged breakfast confab following her overnight shift at the hospital. He'd managed to track her down by phone there during the week, having left a message which she'd thankfully returned, and they were to meet over in her neck of the woods at 9:30AM to discuss his plan.

Rick arrived at the coffee shop before her and managed to snag them a table despite the weekend morning traffic in and out of the place. In the few extra minutes he had, he called Alexis and wished her luck in her Math Meet she was shortly off to, and composed a text message to Kate about how deliciously naughty he still felt for what he'd done to her body the night before in her childhood bedroom. Given that they weren't in the house alone, they'd had to improvise, but oh, how they'd managed to do just that.

"No hat and shades for the famous author out among the people?" Lanie joked once she'd spotted him and made her way through the crowd. "Lord, it is busy in here. How did you even manage to get a table?"

Gentleman that he was, he pulled out a chair for her and returned to his own. "You said it: famous author. They parted like the Red Sea for me." He used his hands to further illustrate his entirely fictional tale, and all it earned him was the side-eye. "Also, I just happened to walk by at the perfect time. Thanks for coming, by the way. I'm sure you're wondering what this is all about."

"What I'm wondering is when I can get home to my bed and the ten hours of sleep I just earned being on my feet all night. Are you going to buy me a coffee or what?"

Rick jumped out of his seat. "Of course, yeah, what-"

"Sit back down, writer. Why would I drink coffee before going to sleep?" She eyed him until he sat. "You're nervous. What's going on with you? Did you do something to Kate?"

He'd done many things to Kate over the past several hours, none of which he could share. "I'm not nervous, I'm excited. There's a difference, and Kate's fine. We're fine. That's why I wanted to ask for your help, actually, because things are fine-good, I mean, really good."

The gal who'd gone off to make his cappuccino returned with it and he handed her a twenty, told her to keep the change just to avoid the further interruption, given Lanie's burgeoning want of out of the place.

"You're babbling, very unlike a writer. Spit it out. What do you need?"

"I want to take Kate to Paris in a few weeks for a little anniversary thing, and I want it to be a surprise. I know getting her out of work is going to be the mountain I have to move and I can only have her for a couple of nights, so I wanted to pick your brain to see if you might have any ideas."

Lanie's mouth all but opened to the floor. "You're going to take my girl to Paris for a little anniversary thing? Paris is her dream," she enthused.

"So I've learned and so I shall, _if_ you can help me. No pressure."

"Okay, tell me what you're thinking."

In his excitement, he sipped too quickly from his coffee and burned his tongue, so his words began to come out with an odd slur. "I was thinking if I can get her out early on Friday afternoon, which I sort of have to do at this point because I already booked the plane, we can get to Paris and have that night and Saturday night and I can have her back by Monday for work."

Lanie raised a single finger and then sat for a minute. "Wait, you're taking my girl to Paris on a private plane? Is that what I just heard you say?"

"Well, it's kind of the only way it can work… unless you think she'll quit. You see, this is why I asked you for help, all these great ideas."

"Please, I think you'd have a better chance of flapping your arms and making it to Paris than of her quitting that place, but nice try. Okay, look, I can only think of one person who might be able to help. The owners' grandson helps her out sometimes with inventory and stuff when she needs someone. I think he's still in college nearby, so he might be around. Just depends on his schedule, I guess."

Rick's posture perked up, though he continued to struggle awkwardly with the discomfort of his tongue. "Do you know how to get in touch with him? I'll give him cash, buy him beer, whatever he wants."

"Whatever he wants? Hell, I'll do it. There are a lot of things I want." Rick's phone vibrated and lit up with Kate's response to his earlier message and a goofy grin overtook his face. "Man, you have got it so bad. All right, I can probably get to Margaret to ask her about Ryan. Maybe she can have him call you about all this. Give me your number."

Lanie typed Rick's number into her phone's contacts and saved it. "Anything else or can this zombie finally go home?"

"Just a thank you for the help, and when you talk to Margaret please make sure she understands this is supposed to be a surprise. I really want to pull this off for Kate."

Lanie grabbed her bag from the back of the chair. "I can't promise you anything, but I'll damn sure try for my girl. You're a good man, Rick Castle. I wish I'd seen you first," she said sliding her way past.


	12. Chapter 12

Rick walked into Whitman's late that October morning in Ryan's shadow, the anticipation of Kate's reaction to his being there, to the weekend he was there to sweep her away to, having heightened to the nth degree over the past couple of weeks. Surprises were a bit like candy to him, given or received, and with the help of some very generous magic elves, he'd managed to pull off a doozy, or so he hoped.

Kate was at the back ringing out a customer when the two arrived, the bell above the door that always had Rick so charmed alerting her to attention, and her face lit up instantly. They hadn't planned to see one another that weekend, Rick offering Alexis' phony school something or other as an excuse, so when her expression threw him pronounced shock,he couldn't help but believe his plan, at least thus far, had been a success.

She finished with the customer she sweetly knew by name and came around the counter, Ryan her first target of inquiry, simply because he was nearest. "What are you doing here, Ryan? Your grandparents didn't tell me you were coming in today," she said, already wanting to banish him to the back so she could greet his companion properly.

He looked over his shoulder at Rick. "I think I'm going to let Rick explain, actually. Maybe I'll just give you guys a minute." As he shuffled off, he turned back to Kate. "I guess this really means we're never going out," he said dispiritedly. "Bummer."

"Aw, you've broken the boy's heart, Katherine," Rick said coming for his turn. "But, it's because of me, so my sympathy has passed. Happy to see me?"

She curled up onto her tiptoes and pecked his lips. "Sure," she replied breezily. "Wanna buy a book?"

He grabbed the fabric of her shirt and tugged until she was pressed against him. "That kiss didn't scream happy, first of all, and second of all, I want to do many, many things," he said with some heat before a pause so his eyes could drink her in, "but, right now, we have somewhere to be, so we have to go."

Kate let out a confused chuckle. "Rick, I'm in the middle of work. I can't go anywhere."

"Actually, you can and you are. Hey, Ryan?" Rick's scorned cohort came walking back over. "Ryan is taking over for you. It's all been worked out. The gentleman's been paid, he knows what to do, and whom to call if he needs anything. You, Kate Beckett, are all mine."

They could almost hear Ryan's grumble at the knife Rick had twisted.

"I don't understand what's going on," Kate said.

"I've got this, Kate, don't worry," Ryan pledged. "Go."

Rick slid his hand down her arm and took her hand. "Come on, go get your bag. We have a little bit of a drive and we're on the clock. Ryan, you have my number in case there's a _huge_ emergency; otherwise, this place is in your hands, so sell some books."

A still confused Kate ducked behind the counter and grabbed her things, took a glance around the shop, like it was the last time she might see it. "You have my number, too, Ryan, I guess."

"Have fun," he called after them as they walked out the door.

"Have fun doing what?" Kate asked Rick, who just smiled.

 **xxxx**

"You know, taking a woman from work, tossing her into your car without her approval, and not telling her where she's going kind of sounds like kidnapping," Kate said from the passenger seat as they cruised down the interstate for Teterboro Airport. "Why won't you tell me what's going on?"

Rick slid her a glance. "Did I toss you? Is that what I did, because you seem pretty comfortable on that leather seat with your bottled water and your scone, there? Just relax and be patient. For now, all I'll say is that we're going somewhere to get somewhere."

She picked a chunk off the blueberry bread and swallowed it. "It is a very good scone, thank you. I didn't eat breakfast this morning."

"Ah, so I'm a chauffeur _and_ a psychic. Maybe I should start charging more." He tapped a button on his steering wheel and upped the volume on the music he'd chosen-French, of course, clever man he was. "This weekend's our anniversary, four months, did you know that? It's when we first met at the bookshop."

"Pretty girly of you to keep track," she teased.

"Well, excuse me for being sentimental. Maybe we should just turn right around and-"

Kate drew her knuckles softly along his neck. "I'm kidding. I think it's sweet, and I didn't know exactly, but I had an idea."

Four months felt like four years for him, and in the very best of ways. He'd never been more comfortable with someone, more at home with a person so quickly, and though she hadn't yet reciprocated the declaration he'd made to her in her mother's office those weeks ago, he wasn't to be frightened off by it. He wasn't going anywhere, ever, not if he had anything to say about it.

"I was bluffing about going back, anyway. I'm pretty deep into this thing. There's no way in hell I'd turn us around. Oh, that reminds me. Speaking of hell," he said out of the corner of his mouth, "I took care of things with Josh for your show tonight, since you won't be back."

She jumped right past his bid for a laugh. "You called Josh? You talked to him? What did you say?"

"Again, you can relax. We had a nice chat, he and I. I just called you in sick, that's all, told him you were next to me in bed, naked, and I was nursing you back to health."

Kate slapped him playfully on the arm. "Stop it. What did you really say?"

"I promise, just that you weren't feeling great. He asked if you were going to be okay and I said you'd be fine and we hung up. Perfect gentlemen."

She quickly thought back. She hadn't missed a Friday at the station in…maybe she never had, and it was an odd realization, the idea of not being there to open that book when she and so many others looked forward to it, each week. It was part of her therapy and her escape, something she always relied upon to settle her noisy mind.

"This is the first time," she said. "I've been there every Friday."

Rick reached across their divide and set his hand on her leg. "I didn't think about it that way, I'm sorry. I just got so caught up in planning this thing. I'm an idiot. I know how important that is to you."

"You're not. It's okay. It's just one week, right? Who knows, maybe this will be the start of a new tradition where I get kidnapped from work on Fridays and taken to mysterious locations in fancy cars."

"Don't even joke about that, not unless you'll allow me to play the role of permanent Kate-napper." His hand crept up to her neck and settled beneath her hair. "I really am sorry."

Kate leaned into his touch to let him know all was okay. "How about you start to make it up to me with a hint?"

"I do like the start part. That definitely has promise. And I guess I can tell you that there are many of them, but none like the original. Sort of like me."

She rolled her eyes, pushed his hand back to his side of the car. "Just keep driving."

 **xxxx**

They arrived at Teterboro about an hour later, their final destination Atlantic Aviation for the charter out, and Kate couldn't have been more puzzled, or Rick more excited. They made the drive in perfect time with his calculated schedule, his hope to be in the air by 12:30PM and on the ground at Le Bourget by 2AM, so they could wander the quiet streets of Le Marais and watch the sun come up over Île de la Cité from the Pont des Arts.

"We're going on a private plane? Are you kidding me?"

"Excuse me, it's a jet, Kate, a private jet," he said not so much in correction as in braggadocio. "I popped the trunk. Go check it out."

She climbed from the car and went around to the back, a bag packed and ready for each of them tucked inside. "Okay, I know how you have a bag, but how do I have a bag, and _my_ bag, no less?"

"So, I might've had another helper besides Ryan. Lanie packed it for you, so I might need to apologize again because I have no idea what's inside." Rick lifted both from the trunk and she closed it after him. "Obviously, I'm hoping it's a toothbrush and a black thing or two and that's it, but from the unfortunate weight of this thing, I'm not sure Lanie and I are on the same page."

"But how did she…?"

Honestly, he didn't know the details. He hadn't asked. All he'd cared about was that Lanie make it happen. "You work days, she works nights, and she said she already had a key. That was good enough for me," he said. "Come on, our chariot awaits."

A first for both, they were welcomed aboard the Gulfstream by their pilot and an attendant, the jet courtesy of Rick's incredibly famous and incredibly generous writer buddy from Maine. They found champagne waiting for them inside along with a charcuterie board grand enough for twenty, and neither could quite believe the experience was to be entirely theirs.

"Rick, this is incredible." Kate walked the narrow aisle and peeked out all the windows, an enormous smile on her face. "This must've cost you a fortune."

He offered her a glass of the champagne, which she gladly accepted. "Actually, I owe my friend, Stephen, a huge debt of gratitude for lending us this ride, and some cash for the fuel and the stay, but I would've found a way to buy one myself just to see the look on your face right now."

Kate clinked with him in toast. "You have some pretty amazing friends," she said dropping into the seat behind her.

"Well, I'm not sure any of them would pack my underwear for me, but there are a few good ones in the bunch. Lanie has really been something with all of this, especially since she and I hardly know one another. You'll have to give me some ideas for a gift of thanks for her when we get back."

"Yeah, I will," Kate said, her voice turned soft with something, and Rick knew exactly what that something was.

"You're thinking about your dad," he said taking the seat across the aisle. "Hey, you don't have to worry. Lanie said she'd take care of it. She said she'd do the same thing she did when you came to the Hamptons with me, whatever that means. I assumed it meant she looked in on him for you."

"Okay, yeah, I just want to make sure," she said and thanked him with a kiss.

She still didn't know where they were off to, and Rick wanted to be the one to tell her before the crew had a chance to accidentally ruin the surprise, so he set aside his glass, his hand furtively ducking into the pocket of his jeans and pulling out a trinket which he curled up into his fist.

"Are you ready to find out where we're going, before our two friends up there spoil the moment for me? If so, kiss a hand." She eyed them both, checked his face for any tells like he was some opponent waiting for her to make a bet in one of his poker games, and then leaned in and kissed the left. "Okay, kiss another hand," he told her when she chose the wrong one, and when the right one opened, inside was a miniature version of the Eiffel Tower that doubled as a key chain.

Kate could hardly believe what she was seeing. "We're going to Paris? You're taking me to Paris?"

It was almost as though there were tears in her voice. "We are. I am. It's going to be over in the blink of an eye, I know, but the way you always talk about it, I just wanted to make sure I was there with you the first time. And, of course, it is our very important four-month anniversary."

"I can't believe you did this." She climbed out of her seat and set herself on his lap, kissed him wildly as the champagne sloshed around in her glass.

All at once, their pilot cleared his throat at the front of the plane, his smile heard as well as seen. "We're ready to go, Mr. Castle. If you could get yourselves belted in, we'll be wheels up, and I'm sorry to say, at least for now, we're going to need each of you in your own seat."

He turned for the cockpit and the door shut behind him.

"You heard that 'at least for now' part, right?" Rick beamed.

 **xxxx**

They ate lobster for dinner, a humorous touch from their benefactor that didn't go unrecognized, and they watched Cary Grant outrun a plane of his own in _North by Northwest,_ in between make out sessions that seemed to go on for as long as the sky was wide. Neither wanted to sleep, not that they could in their eagerness of what was to come, and as Kate reclined beside him, their limbs tangled and wrapped, the reality of what he'd done for her still hadn't truly sunk in.

"I'm going to Paris," she said to him and to herself. "What are we going to see first?"

"Well," Rick said as he ran his fingers through the hair she'd let fall across his chest, "considering it's going to be the middle of the night when we get there, probably not a whole lot. If you're not exhausted, though, we can bring our bags to the hotel and just go out and wander in the darkness. If you want to take a nap, we can do that, too. I'm up for anything."

"I don't want to sleep. I only have two days."

"Coffee it is," he said. "We'll buy some at every corner café." She burrowed in deeper beside him. "Coffee and what else?"

"Let's just walk so we can see everything, absorb all of it, and then when our feet are so tired they can't possibly carry us any further, you can take me to bed, because there is no way I'm leaving Paris without you making love to me."

He angled so he could see her face. "Maybe decaf, then," he said and he kissed her again.

 **xxxx**

It felt like a different world, so much of the city asleep around them as they rambled its night-dark streets, almost dreamlike in its departure from the place she'd come from just hours before. That's what it had always been to her, Paris, a dream, one she wondered if she'd ever actually wake up to once her mother was gone. She was to have been her partner there when Kate graduated from university, the one by her side on those cobblestone boulevards and in those cafés, but it wasn't loss she felt that morning, not with Rick's hand wrapped tightly around hers.

"I've been here three times, before, and I can already tell you I've never enjoyed it this much," he said as dawn began to break pink and orange above. "You still with me? You're quiet."

"I'm still with you. I'm just…"

"Paris," he said, a single word enough for a thousand. "I know. Should we head over to the bridge and watch the sunrise? I brought something for us to leave behind."

They ambled along Quai de la Mégisserie to Pont des Arts, its fences blanketed with metal locks left behind by lovers over the years, and parked themselves on a bench at its center. There was another couple just down the way, huddled together below one of the bridge's lampposts, their arms wrapped around one another and their lips speaking without words, and Kate watched them in their moment, inspired by the power of the love hanging all around them.

"Do you have one out here somewhere?" she asked.

"Alexis wanted me to attach one with her name on it when I was here a couple of years ago. Hopefully it's still here. I know they come through and remove some every so often." He reached into his coat pocket and pulled one out. "I brought this with me, just in case you wanted to."

Kate took it from him, their initials already written in red on the flat of its golden exterior, its key dangling from the bottom. "I definitely want to. Help me find a good spot?"

They searched along the cluttered fence in the shadow of Notre Dame until they found a tiny opening near the bottom of one section. "It's not the penthouse, but the view still ain't half bad," Rick said. "What do you think?" Kate wrapped the metal loop and snapped it in place, pulled the key free and tossed it into the Seine without a word. "Hey, look at you. You're a pro, already."

"I told you, I've read a thing or two."

Rick took her by the lapels of her coat and held her close. "That's one of the sexiest things about you. That and that other thing."

"Oh? Just one more?"

" _Shh_! I'm trying to picture it right now."

She freed herself from his grip and turned her focus to the river. "Okay, you go ahead and do that then. I'll be over here watching the show," she said.

He joined her in short order, but his mind continued to play. "Your first Paris sunrise," he remarked at her ear. "I promise it's the first of many, many more."

 **xxxx**

In the soft light of their room, Rick kissed the spot at her shoulder blade, the one he always sought out, the line of her bare back exposed beneath him. His fingers slid to her hip and encouraged her over, her body complying without dispute, the sound of breath escaping her parted lips like an exquisite choir to his ears.

Kate's weary legs parted and he made sanctuary between them, his chin propped against her belly, his chest now dewy with the fruit of their fervent union. They still hadn't slept, not for one moment, the hours few until they'd be on their way home again.

"You always kiss me there," she said, more a question than her delivery suggested.

It was true. He'd done it ever since he'd discovered it painted there on her skin, its delicate lines a silent tribute. Drawn was a book, open, Kate's initials on a page beside her mother's, a badge to be carried with her through the rest of her days.

"You want me to stop?"

Her fingers closed around a handful of his hair. "No. It feels good. I like it."

"Good, because I don't want to stop," he said laying his head to rest. "I don't want to stop any of this."

She set his hair loose, but continued to draw her fingers through it in lazy pattern. "Can I ask you something?" She went on when he offered a hum of consent. "Have you really not been writing?"

Rick's head picked up, again. "What do you mean?"

"When your agent asked that morning, Alexis said you weren't."

"No, I'm not," he confessed on the other side of a lull, that truth difficult to admit. "I've been trying to want to."

A part of Kate wanted to push, to compliment and to praise, but that wasn't what he needed, not in that moment. There was a path back, a mend that would restore the connection between him and his words; she knew that. The key was merely time.

"I hope you do," she said plainly.

He set his hands, pushed his body up, and lay down beside her at the pillow. "Sleep with me," he said and curled his arm around her.

Kate hugged him into her, let a silent moment pass. "Rick?" she whispered, but only a faint acknowledgement came. "Je t'aime."


	13. Chapter 13

"It's nice to see you, Kate," Dr. Burke said as he flipped open his usual notepad. "It's been a while since you've missed one of our appointments."

Kate had canceled her previous Friday session at the last minute, so she hadn't seen him in a month, and she knew, as she took her position across from him on that afternoon, the question as to why would inevitably come.

It upset her to even think about it, about the time she'd been forced to spend dealing with something she'd never even been asked her feelings about, something she'd never wanted any part of-one more thing her father had done that'd left her confused and hurt.

"I know. I'm sorry," Kate said, the sentiment sincere.

"There's no need to be sorry, Kate. They're your appointments to cancel." She gave him a sort of half smile, and with it, to her surprise, he moved on. "So, how are things? Is there anything you'd like to talk about?"

There were always things. Whether or not she wanted to talk about them was a whole different matter.

"I, um, I went to Paris. Rick and I went to Paris," she said opting for light over dark, and instantly she felt transported. Every time she said the word out loud now, every time she merely thought of it, it lit her up. Her memories of the city's sublime sights and sounds, of the moments they'd shared-their bed, their shower, their return home and his car because they couldn't bring themselves to be through with one another yet-were all just as vivid as though she was still there.

"Paris, really, I don't think you mentioned you were going on a trip when I saw you last."

"No, I didn't. I didn't know about it then. The whole weekend was a surprise, actually."

"Things are still going well between the two of you." Kate's lips curled softly. "You had expressed concern at one point about the unexpected ease you felt with Rick and about the difficulty you were having with trusting that. Has that now become easier for you?"

"He doesn't push. I think that's helped. He makes me want to trust it."

"I know that talking to him about your father was a challenge for you, and that the first time you tried to introduce them didn't go as you'd hoped. Has that now happened? Have the two of them met?"

 _Didn't go as you'd hoped_. Kate almost wanted to laugh at how brilliant an understatement it was, but there really wasn't anything funny about it. The truth was it hadn't gone at all.

"They've met," she responded with a calm that wasn't.

Burke waited for more because her entire posture screamed of it, but as was often the case, the more needed to be drawn out.

"I know you like things to be simple, Kate, but I get the feeling there's more to that story."

"Isn't there always when it involves my father?" she said softly but with a discernible sharpness.

"Okay and should we discuss that?"

She pulled at the band around her hair and let it fall loose. "I mean, at least he bothered to come downstairs the second time. That was an improvement, though, honestly, it might've been better if he hadn't. Rick drove up to cook dinner for the three of us, and all my dad did the whole time was complain about how he felt like shit. Well, that was when his mouth wasn't attached to that fucking glass."

"That must've been difficult for you."

"And now I'm stuck handling all this cabin bullshit because how the hell is he supposed to? I never wanted anything to do with it. That's what I was doing that day when I canceled our session, cleaning up a mess, again." Her head dipped back and her eyes closed. "I'm just so tired of all of it. I'm so fucking tired."

"Tired of what?"

She didn't respond right away, didn't pick up her head, didn't move a muscle. "Of always being afraid that something's going to happen, of waking up to no one every morning, of walking on eggshells, of taking care of someone who…"

"It's okay to say it, Kate," Burke replied with gentle encouragement.

Tears had pooled in her eyes and slid down her cheeks when she finally came back to him. "He's my dad."

"I know, and it's still okay."

She used the cuff of her sleeve to wipe her eyes dry and swallowed down the lump that hung like a knot in her throat. "Of taking care of someone who doesn't ever take care of me."

 **xxxx**

"Oh, I do wish Katherine had been able to join us today, Richard," Martha said as she stood at the oven's open door, draped in an apron, a baster in her hand. It was one of the only tasks Rick ever permitted her on that day each year, her talents in the kitchen, fair to say, all but nonexistent, yet she always found way to celebrate herself for it. "She's going to miss out on my pièce de résistance. Honestly, have you ever seen such divine color on a bird?"

Rick, seated in front of her at the breakfast bar, took a peek over the counter at her handiwork. "Very impressive, Mother," he said patronizingly, "and it looks like the kitchen's still in one piece."

"Really, Richard, the same joke at my expense every year?" she griped. "So, have you talked to her yet?"

"Not yet. I was going to call her after I made sure that thing still looked like a turkey." He grabbed his phone and pushed off the stool. "You want me to ask her what color a bird's supposed to be?"

"Maybe you'll be funnier after we open the wine, darling. We can always hope." She dismissed him with a grand wave of her hand. "Send her my love, would you?"

Rick went into his bedroom and dropped onto the bed, let his body fall back into the rumple of unmade sheets, Kate's phone ringing in his ear. He'd invited her and Jim to spend Thanksgiving at the loft, but she'd declined, offering the amount of necessary driving and an achy leg as their excuse, but the truth was, she hadn't even asked her father if he'd wanted to go. For her, it'd just seemed easier than the potential for disaster, given everything Martha didn't know.

"You might be interested to know that I've already worked up such an appetite giving thanks for you today, I'm passed out in my bed from hunger," he said when she answered, the hour barely noon. "No need to worry about me, though. I actually remembered to defrost the turkey this year, so eating it is going to be a lot easier."

" _You_ remembered?" Kate asked skeptically.

"Fine, Alexis remembered, but still."

She hummed knowingly. "That sounds more like it. Did she make it out to Los Angeles okay?"

Rick kicked off his slippers and scooted all the way back onto the bed. "Aside from the hell that is airline travel at Thanksgiving, she did. She called me last night from the house and told me Meredith was making some kind of tofu I don't know what for today. I swear the woman has never had any clue what normal is."

"Sounds like you two were perfect for each other," Kate teased. "It's a shame it didn't last."

"Yeah, for her," he quipped.

"Can you hear the look I'm giving you, because I'm giving it very loudly?"

Rick grinned. "Yeah, and it sounds pretty sexy to me. Would you like to know what I'm imagining you wearing while you're giving it?"

"Anyway," she said in an attempt to reel him back in, "I'm sure Alexis will have fun, no matter what she's being fed, besides it's good she's seeing her mom."

"I know. I just really wanted her to be here. I really wanted you to be here, too."

A pang of guilt jabbed Kate in the gut for the fib she'd told. "I'm sorry. I promise I'll make it up to you, and when I do, it'll definitely be better than turkey."

Rick's pulse quickened as he conjured up the welcome images. "I think a few more text messages like last night's would be a fine start. You know you kill me with that stuff. Oh, shoot, before I forget, Mother, the queen of basting, sends her love."

He couldn't see the expression on her face, but he surely would've laughed if he had. "Do you realize how disturbing it is that you jumped from those messages to your mother?"

"I told you I'm hungry. I'm sorry. My head's all over the place."

There was a notable pause before Kate replied, because her brain had taken his inadvertent innuendo and run with it. "Is it? Maybe I'll use that as my inspiration for tonight."

Rick grunted something incoherent. "Okay, I need to hang up now, before I can't walk out of this room and back to my mother a respectable man," he said.

"Send Martha my love, too, and call me later, if you've managed to survive the tryptophan and carb fest."

"Hey," he said, his voice soft, "tell me you know how thankful I am to have you."

"I do, and I love you," Kate said, and once the sound of his voice was gone, it hit her just how much she wished she'd had the strength to agree to be there with him.

 **xxxx**

It was always one of the most difficult days of the year for them, that Thursday that always came around late in November, even more so for Kate who, on that particular Thursday, found herself feeling more alone than she ever had before. It'd always been her mother's favorite holiday, Thanksgiving, and unlike so many, she'd delighted in the work, in all the hours of preparation that culminated in but one meal, because when it was all said and done, she had the pleasure of being able to share it with the people she loved most, and to her, that was everything.

Kate's Aunt Theresa wasn't able to be with them that year, though she usually came to stay, because she and her friends had sailed off on a cruise vacation to the islands for the week, and without Lanie, whose family wasn't local but whose decision to pick up an extra shift for the bonus pay had her off at the hospital, Kate and Jim were on their own to celebrate for the first time in a long time.

There wasn't reason to make it a big affair, certainly not since it was just the two of them, so Kate prepared them a modest meal to enjoy together, barely a fraction of the effort her mother once put in, but something, because it was important to her to not let the day simply pass.

She and Jim sat together in the living room, the TV tuned to the early afternoon football game, and they ate in the quiet of each other's presence, the air laced with the melancholy of another year without Johanna, without much of what'd once filled that home with so much laughter and light.

"Remember how we used to have to mute the TV on Thanksgiving so she'd let us watch the games?" Kate asked before she realized she'd even had the thought. That wasn't something she did, mention her mother so casually, not anymore.

"She hated football," Jim replied after a long moment. "She hated sports."

It was all she'd heard him say about her in so long that it almost made her afraid to take it any further. "Except tennis, I never understood the tennis thing." There was a gentle bit of laughter on her part, but he gave nothing, so she retreated to safer ground. "So, when's Monty coming up, Dad? It's soon, right?"

Jim's partner from the NYPD had retired to Florida the previous year, and they'd seen him only once since, but he was set to be in town after the holiday and had called to try and schedule a visit.

"A week from Saturday. Or Friday, I don't know."

His fingers were wrapped around his glass, the glass she'd grown to loathe, the one she wanted to smash into a million pieces until it was unrecognizable, and she stared at it until her eyes blurred with the hatred.

"I know it's just the two of us this year, but should we each say something we're thankful for? We always do when Aunt Theresa's here."

"Not for all these damned commercials," Jim barked at the TV.

Kate didn't say another word as she worked to summon her mother's voice. Without its comfort, tears would surely have come.

 **xxxx**

Kate returned home from her show at the station the following Friday night to find Monty sitting with Jim, the scent of cigarette smoke in the air announcing him before she even set foot inside. He scooped her up into a hug right away, her toes suspended above the floor, and he spun her around the way he always did when she was just a child. She laughed and squeezed him tight, and for just those few seconds, the world felt entirely different, as it once had.

"You look more and more like your mom every time I see you, kid," he told her when Jim got up and left the room.

It's what everyone called him, Monty, his last name Montgomery, and he'd been a part of their lives for as long as Kate could remember-when she still wore her hair in pigtails, for her graduation from high school, during her mother's illness, through Jim's subsequent fall and rise. It was his hands that'd been pressed against her father's bleeding wounds that nightmarish day out on the street, and there he was still, his presence always a welcome force.

Kate could hear her father off in the kitchen, the all too familiar sounds that emanated as grating as if he was standing right beside her. "I'm glad you're here," she said. "It's been too long."

"Sorry, kid, it's tough for me to pry myself away from the boat, these days, especially for weather like this. It's like the frozen tundra up here." He glanced over her shoulder to make sure they were still alone. "The old man isn't looking so good, K. Worse than the last time."

Her chin dropped. "I don't know what to do. Without the job and without Mom he's not-"

"So, you're just hanging out with the mouse all day down there, or what?" Jim cracked as he came back into the room, a glass of beer in each hand, one passed on to his guest.

"Nah, JB-that's what the guys on the force always called Jim-I already told you our place is nowhere near the mouse, thank God," Monty said, having gathered the reference to Disney. "It's insane over there with all that traffic."

Not wanting to intrude on their already limited time together, Kate excused herself so they could continue catching up. "I have work early in the morning," she told Monty. "If I don't see you before I leave, have a safe trip home." She hugged him once more and expressed her love, a look of understanding shared between them before she headed upstairs to bed.

"She's an incredible kid, JB. Don't get me wrong, I love my boys, but I wish I had one just like her."

Jim had already swallowed down much of what was in his glass. "Katie's a good girl," he said.

Monty sat back down on the couch. "Then why the hell are you doing this to her, Jimmy? Why are you back on that shit? It wasn't enough you lost J? You want to lose your daughter, too?"

"Don't you fucking sit there on my couch in my house and talk to me about my wife," Jim snapped. "I don't see you for months and then you come in here like you know what's going on. You don't know a goddamned thing."

"No, JB, _you_ don't know what's going on, because you're barely here as you sit there in that chair. I grew up with a drunk, or did you forget that? I know what it looks like, and your daughter is drowning in it. I could see that after five minutes."

"If this is why you came here, you can go. I'm fine. Katie's fine. We don't need your help."

Monty stood up, grabbed the pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket. "You're right, JB. You need a lot more help than I can give you." He went for the door then turned back. "Look, you've been through a lot of tough shit, Jimmy, and you're going to do what you're going to do, but Kate doesn't deserve to be dragged down with you. I'm going for a smoke," he said and he walked out.

Standing at the top of the stairs, out of sight, Kate had heard the entire conversation. The difficult part would be in finding hope that any of what Monty had said would make any difference at all.

 **xxxx**

"This feels good," Kate said in a murmur of bliss, her head at Rick's chest, their fully clothed bodies stretched out together across his bed.

"I'm sorry you had such a crappy week." He drew her hand up to his lips and kissed her palm. "Want me to take you to Paris?"

She'd taken the train down to see him that Saturday night, at the conclusion of a particularly bad week at work that'd begun with a burst pipe and ended with a delayed-then-erroneous shipment, the bitter cold weather that'd set in to blame for most of it. The mention of the potential for heavy snow had already been tossed around by local weather reporters, in fact, and far too soon at that.

"Want to go and stay forever?" she replied, her heart speaking, not her head. "I bet it's beautiful there when it snows."

"Hey, don't say it unless you mean it. If I say the word, Alexis could probably find a way to get herself into college on Monday. Once that's done, I'm all yours, wherever you want."

The days since Monty had arrived and departed had been exactly the same any other. His words hadn't made a bit of difference, hadn't brought about any change, hadn't found Jim any more Jim at all, and though Kate had foreseen that outcome, having heard her father's reaction the night they spoke, it still felt like another door slammed in her face.

"I'm scared it'll never be different."

Rick rolled over onto his side, though the minimal light spilling from the closet wasn't enough to allow him full view of her face. "What won't be different?"

"I feel stuck, Rick. Before I met you, I'd started to settle into this place where I just accepted the way things were probably going to be in my life, with my job, and in my relationship with Josh, and everything with my dad, but the surprise of you and everything you've made me feel has reminded me of the things I used to want. I want more than this, but I feel like I can't change any of it."

His hand found her cheek and he let it rest there. "I know it's not the same, but I understand what stuck feels like. I know what it's like to want something but to feel that it's impossibly out of reach, and I wish I could give all of it to you. I wish I could go back and set everything right, even if it meant we would never have met, that I couldn't have you."

"God, please don't say that. I wouldn't want that. I need this." She pushed in close. "Of all the bookshops, in all the towns, in all the world, he walks into mine."

"And his life was never the same again. The End," Rick said completing a thought that needed no help. "Hey, that was the first thing I've written in months. Maybe we should work as a team, you and me." His fingers glided down her body until they landed at the curve of her hip, and he held her firmly. "I'm not going anywhere, Kate, no matter what does or doesn't happen with work or your father or Josh. Hang on, scratch that last part, because I already won that round."

"Excuse me but you didn't win anything. I ended things with Josh before you even came along with your fake names and fancy scones."

"I love it when you call my scones fancy. Want to make out?"

Kate giggled and kissed him sweetly. "Sleep with me," she said, those words theirs since Paris, words one would whisper to the other in the darkness before they'd drift off together.

She curled into his body and they slept, but it wasn't two hours later before Rick was awoken by the ring of his phone, and he reached across the bed in his startle to answer it. It was Lanie on the other end, someone who most certainly shouldn't be calling him, let alone at that hour of the night.


	14. Chapter 14

Kate stirred awake beside Rick with the sound of his voice and maneuvered her body upright. She rubbed her eyes clear, noted the brief amount of time that'd passed since they'd fallen asleep, and her concern only grew as she listened without context to the only side of the phone conversation she could hear.

"No, she's here with me," Rick said. "She's here. Hang on. It's Lanie." He passed Kate his phone in the darkness having no idea the reason, but knowing, given the tone of Lanie's voice and the hour, it certainly wasn't a good one.

"Lanie?"

"Kate, I've been calling your phone for half an hour. Where are you?"

Kate felt terribly confused, the fog of sleep no help. Her phone was with her, of course it was, but suddenly she had no idea where the hell it was. "I don't know what…I'm at the loft with Rick. Lanie, what's wrong?"

"Kate, your dad was in an accident. He's here at the hospital."

Kate sprang from the bed, startled Rick. "What are you talking about? What kind of accident?"

He got up and switched on the bedside lamp, went to her as she began to pace the floor. "Kate?" He tugged at the back of the shirt and halted her movement. "What's-" A silencing hand stopped him from saying more.

"All I know is he was driving and the car was t-boned," Lanie told her. "He's got a couple of cracked ribs and a pretty good cut on his head. They have him here in the ER."

"I'm coming," Kate said and she shoved the phone into Rick's body.

"Tell me what's going on, Kate." He slid his feet hurriedly into his shoes as she did. "What happened?"

"You have to drive me home. Can you bring me home?" She tried to move past, but he stopped her. "I need to go home, Rick. He was in an accident. He's at the hospital."

"Who was? Your father?"

She pushed her fingers through her hair, almost violently so. "Yes, my father. I need to go," she said again, even more insistent.

Rick grabbed her by the hand, stopping only to fetch her bag from the chair in the corner, and they headed straight for the garage and his car.

 **xxxx**

Rick broke about a dozen traffic laws getting Kate up to the hospital, but they arrived in just over an hour, thanks to the nonexistent traffic of too early morning, Kate practically leaping from the Benz as he pulled up to the entrance for Emergency. He parked as close as space would allow and followed after her, finding her in a corner of the waiting room with Lanie by her side.

"He's got six stitches on his forehead and he's grumpy as hell because he's sore, but he'll be fine. And I'm sorry, but just so you know, when I couldn't reach you, someone called your aunt, too."

Kate squeezed her hand. "Okay, I'll call her. Thanks, Lanie," she said, Rick seconding the sentiment.

"He's under concussion monitoring, so let me go make sure Dr. Blaine's good with you seeing him and then I'll come get you. Breathe, Kate, okay? Breathe," she said, Kate's shoulders nearly at her ears with her worry.

She couldn't bring herself to sit, her adrenaline pumping with the shock of it, and Rick could only do what he imagined she wanted: give her the space to be whatever she needed to be. He never took his eyes off of her, though, his way of being there with her absolutely.

Kate circled a small section of chairs over and over again in wait, the floor beneath her feet already practically worn with her perpetual movement, but it wasn't Lanie who came out to get her.

"Ms. Beckett?" Kate heard the voice and turned immediately, Rick remaining seated close by. "I'm Dr. Blaine. I attended to your father this morning."

"How is he?"

"He's doing well. He's resting as comfortably as he can right now. The force of the accident cracked a couple of his ribs, but nothing worrisome, no internal bleeding or anything to that degree, and it won't require any kind of hospital stay. He's going to be in some pain for a little while, but that should diminish over the next few weeks, and anti-inflammatories like naproxen or ibuprofen and certainly ice packs will help with the discomfort. I don't know how active your father is on a day-to-day basis, but if he's able to take it easy and not engage in any unusual or strenuous activity, that will certainly aid in recovery, as well."

"Lanie mentioned he was being monitored for a concussion?"

"Yes, that's correct. He did take a hit to the head and he informed us he was experiencing some light dizziness. As a precaution, we've been monitoring him. I'd like to give it another few hours, just to be on the safe side."

"Absolutely, okay," Kate said.

"We stitched up the wound on his forehead and we'll send you home with care instructions for the laceration. The stitches are of the dissolvable variety, so he won't need to see anyone to have them removed. You'll obviously want to keep an eye on the area for any signs of infection, but if the instructions are followed, I don't foresee that. Look, I know getting a call from the ER can be quite overwhelming, but your father's very lucky, Ms. Beckett. He's going to be just fine."

"Thank you, Dr. Blaine. Can I go back and see him?"

"Absolutely, come on back."

Kate turned to Rick who'd heard every word and he nodded, gave her a little smile. "I'll be right here," he said and she went off with the doctor.

 **xxxx**

They were all supposed to have breakfast together later that Sunday morning, the two of them along with Martha and Alexis, but given their unforeseen departure from the city and the hour at which it'd happened, neither was yet aware their plans would be no more.

It was early, before-dawn early, but Rick called Martha, anyway, to tell her about what'd happened.

"Oh, Richard, that's just awful. Thank heavens it wasn't more serious. How's Katherine holding up?"

"It all happened so fast, Lanie calling and us racing up here. It was a lot, but I think she's okay. The doctor explained everything a few minutes ago and she's with Jim now, so."

"She's a tough cookie, that gal of yours, and Jim's beaten tougher foes than this, so I'm sure he'll soon be as good as new."

Martha wasn't aware of the extent of Jim's struggles. Kate certainly hadn't spoken openly about them, and Rick knew it wasn't his place, not if he wanted to continue to remain someone she trusted, so he'd talked only of the shooting and not much more.

"Okay, Mother, I'm going to let you get back to sleep. I'm not sure what the day's going to look like, yet, if she'll want me to stay or just to head back to the city. Once I talk to her, I'll let you know. Apologize to Alexis for me about missing breakfast and tell her I'll talk to her later, too."

"I will, darling. You do whatever you have to do. We'll be fine here. Please make sure Katherine knows we're thinking of her and her father."

"Thank you, Mother," he said, and after he hung up, he tried, though futilely, not to think about what his life might be like if something were to happen to the only parent he had.

 **xxxx**

Jim was cleared and released from the hospital later that morning, and with Jim's car having been towed from the accident scene and Kate's still parked at the train station, Rick drove them back to the house, all three exhausted following a night of essentially no sleep.

Rick helped Jim from the car, his discomfort unmitigated by the aid, while Kate went up and unlocked the door, and what she found inside only added to the distress of the past eight hours. It appeared as though someone had forced their way in, though there were no outward signs of such, and left boxes scattered all over the living room floor, emptied of their contents, like they'd been searched for something.

She stood frozen on the landing wondering if she should even go inside, her father and Rick having now made their way up the few stairs that separated them. "Dad," she said, but nothing else came out.

"It's fine, Katie, just go," Jim replied like he knew everything was fine, his voice a combination of aggravation and pain. She and Rick shared a brief look, and then she stepped back and allowed them first entrance. "I want to go to bed," he announced, and Rick followed his lead.

"Okay, Dad, I'll come check on you in a little bit. Do you need anything?"

"I don't need anything," he answered gruffly, and Rick turned and mouthed that it was okay before helping him upstairs.

Kate pulled her bag from her body and dropped it unceremoniously at her feet. "What the hell did he do?" Kate whispered aloud though not with that intention. There were papers and newspaper clippings and photographs strewn everywhere, moments of their family captured and documented over the years, and she didn't understand why.

She'd already begun piling them back up when Rick returned, their first moment alone in several hours, and without a word, he took her by the hand, pulled her up from her knees and into his arms.

"I'm sorry," he said at her ear. "He's okay," he repeated again and again.

"Thank you," she said when he finally relinquished his hold. "I couldn't have done this without you."

"Whatever you need, you know that."

She surveyed the room around them in its disarray and could only shake her head in confusion. "I don't know what's going on. I don't know what he did."

"We'll figure it out." He kissed her forehead. "Why don't I go put on some water and I'll make us some tea and we'll get this cleaned up together."

He went off for the kitchen with her silent blessing, but as he got closer, he happened to notice light trickling into the hallway from her mother's office, and upon further investigation found its door open, the scene on the other side similar to what they'd walked into in the front room. Entire shelves of books had been sent crashing to the floor, along with several of the photographs in picture frames that accompanied them, the sweater that normally hung from the back of Johanna's desk chair no longer there.

"He never comes in here," Kate said, Rick surprised by her presence. The missing sweater was in her hand, and he recognized it instantly. "It was on the floor by his chair." Crossing the threshold, she placed it back at her desk where it belonged, on the desk a single picture frame left upside down. When she picked it up, the loose pieces of glass tumbled to the wood beneath and filled the quiet room with the sound of anger or sadness or both, the joyful faces of her just-married parents staring back at her from beyond the jagged shards that remained.

Rick could see it in her eyes, the pain she felt in seeing her sanctuary in that state, in knowing its tranquility had been invaded and disturbed. "I want to help you, Kate. Will you let me help you?" he asked, because he wouldn't have dared presume to touch anything there without her blessing.

She nodded because in that moment it was easier than a word, and they began to pick up the books together and set them right, though for Kate, no matter how they arranged them now, the room would never feel the same, because it would no longer be as her mother left it.

"He told me he wasn't drinking and that the accident wasn't his fault," Kate said as she sat there next to him, still, a pile of books gathered in her lap. "He said he just needed to get out of the house. I mean, what if it'd been like any one of a thousand other nights, Rick? What if he'd hurt someone, or killed someone? What if…?" She could even finish the thought, but Rick knew.

He reached over caressed her cheek with his thumb. "I want to say the right thing, but I'm not sure there is a right thing. I just want you to know how much I love you."

She looked around the room at all her mother's things and came back to him, her calm in the storm. "I love you, too." The cover of the book atop the stack she'd collected was precisely as she felt, broken. "Rick, I don't know what I'm supposed to do," she said, utterly lost.

 **xxxx**

With Kate's aunt in place to arrive from Philadelphia later that afternoon, Rick ended up driving Kate to the train station to retrieve her car and then returning to the city. She'd told him he was welcome to stay, of course, but he wanted them to have the time alone together as a family, which he hoped, though without having verbalized it, might bring about a conversation that was undoubtedly growing more and more necessary, certainly for Kate's peace of mind.

"You really didn't have to drive all this way, Aunt Theresa. I could've handled it," Kate said as they sat for a chat upon on her arrival.

"Come on. He's my brother. He was in an accident. He was hurt. I'm here. Besides, it's barely a three-hour drive, and I didn't get to see you two at Thanksgiving because of the cruise. So, where is the patient, anyway?"

"He's been resting upstairs all day. He was uncomfortable and he didn't get any sleep at the hospital."

"From the looks of it, you haven't gotten any, either. You okay?"

If ever there was a question. "Honestly," Kate said tucking her feet up onto the couch, "I'm so many things, I'm not sure what I am."

Theresa sprang to her feet. "This definitely sounds like a conversation that needs coffee." Kate didn't have her usual dose that morning, so she easily agreed. "No, I've got it. You sit," she said and went off to the kitchen, and while she was gone Kate went upstairs to check on Jim, who was fast asleep.

She clicked off his television and stood watch over him for a few minutes, his breaths heavy and deep. She hadn't seen him that peaceful in so long, and she savored the sensation. It was all she wanted for him, its attainment painfully unachievable absent his want of the same, and that was one of her greatest struggles. How was she just supposed to continue to accept a choice when that choice was killing him-killing both of them?

Kate went back downstairs and Theresa brought out their coffee, and they sat together and caught up for the better part of an hour. "You deserve it, you know," her aunt said of her relationship with Rick. "You're a wonderful girl, and you have one of the best hearts of anyone I know. Just make sure he always treats you like he knows it, too."

"Thank you, Aunt Theresa, and he does, don't worry."

"And, maybe, he signs a book for me. That would go a long way towards my continued support. I'm just saying."

Kate laughed a tiny laugh. "I think I can probably make that happen."

"Good, now back to your father. He'll feel like garbage for a few weeks, but good as new after that, yes? I mean, as good as Jimmy can be. I know he's not the same Jimmy as before."

Kate knew if there was anyone who'd understand, it would be Theresa. She loved her brother terribly, and she reminded him of it often, and in so many of her own ways, but she hadn't seen all that Kate had seen, experienced all that Kate had experienced being there with him every day, and through no one's fault but her own, no one knew because Kate hadn't shared most of it.

"I don't want to do this anymore, Aunt Theresa," she said.

"Do what, sweetie?"

"I don't want my life with Dad to be about this anymore, to be about him drinking and me feeling like shit for it, and I know that probably sounds selfish, but it's how I feel. When I got the call in the middle of the night about the accident, the first thing that went through my mind was how I hoped he wasn't drunk, for Christ's sake. It shouldn't be like this."

"It's not selfish, Kate. Don't say that, and you're right. It shouldn't be. It's not who he is, and I'm sorry you've been going through it alone. I should've been here and I should've done more. So, you tell me what you want to do and we'll do it. I'll stay as long as you want me to. They said it's supposed to start snowing later, anyway, and I'm definitely not going anywhere in that."

"I don't know what to do. I don't even know if there's anything I can do. That's the problem."

"Have you told him how you feel, like you told me?"

"It's been so long since we had an actual conversation about anything, I don't know if I remember anymore."

Theresa stood up and held out her hand. "Well, we're going to have an actual conversation now, the three of us. Come on. You want to go in and sit in the office until he wakes up? Maybe your mom will send us some good vibes."

Theresa loved Johanna like she was a true sister and she'd taken her loss incredibly hard. Whenever she was at the house for a visit, she and Kate always made sure they found time to spend together in Johanna's space. The ritual had first begun when Jim initially sought help and was gone for a time years before, when Theresa had stepped in to be with Kate in his absence, and they'd continued it ever since.

Kate took her hand and Theresa pulled her up and into a hug. "I'm sorry it's been so long, and I'm sorry I haven't been here to help you."

"I'm just glad you're here now, and I love you," Kate said, Theresa likewise.

 **xxxx**

They were sitting in the office together when Kate heard the noise in the kitchen, and she gave Theresa a curious look because she couldn't believe Jim would be up and moving around enough to get there without them knowing it. She saw the level of help it required of Rick to get him from the car up to his bedroom when they got home from the hospital, so for him to have gotten downstairs on his own seemed almost impossible.

She found him standing at the counter with a plate and a loaf of bread already out, his glass just beside, and her disbelief quickly began to morph into anger.

"Dad? What are you doing?"

"Jimmy, you should be in bed," Theresa chimed in, having followed just behind Kate.

"I'm hungry. I haven't eaten since yesterday. Is that okay?" Jim winced with the effort of the words, yet he continued to fuss with the bread bag's tie.

"I'll do it, Dad. Just tell me what you want." She moved in beside him. "Why didn't you ask me for help?"

"Because I don't need it," he said snippily.

"Hey, Jimmy, lose the attitude. Let your daughter make you a sandwich and we'll go sit in the other room."

Begrudgingly, he let Theresa loop her arm around his to help him into the living room, the mess he'd left behind the night before now cleaned up, though the boxes remained stacked against the wall.

"Bring me a beer, too," he hollered as they left the kitchen, and Kate's jaw instantly clenched.

She had two choices as she stood there, either bring him the beer he'd essentially demanded or don't. She thought of her mother's office and the way they'd found it, of the way he'd spoken to Monty, of the accident and his favorite glass and the dreaded morning routine that began her nearly every day, and then she thought of Rick. Because of him and because of them, her want of more had become a need of more, and in that she knew.

"Here, Dad," she said handing him the plate and nothing more. "It's turkey and cheese." It was already in her voice, some change, something new.

"Where's the beer?" he asked without a thank you.

Theresa nodded at Kate in silent support.

"I'm not bringing you any beer, Dad. You just got out of the hospital after a bad car accident."

Jim set the plate on the arm of his chair. "I'll get it myself," he said and went to get up.

"Give it a rest, Jimmy," Theresa said. "Listen to your daughter."

"Listen to what? What are you even doing here, Theresa?"

Kate perched herself along the edge of the couch, her pulse racing with the weight of what she was about to do. "Listen to yourself, Dad. You need help. This family needs help-you _and_ me. I get up in this house every morning and I wonder what I'm going to find when I come downstairs. I moved back here, we live together, and I barely see you. Instead of going anywhere or talking about anything, about Mom, or about the shooting, or about the job, you drink. That's all you fucking do, Dad, is drink."

"I'm not goi-"

"Don't," Kate said jumping all over his attempt to stop her. "You know, I can't even imagine what Mom would say if she saw you like you are now, saw how you trashed her office like you didn't even care. I don't know what the hell you were doing in there last night, but that's all I have of her, Dad," she yelled in her hurt. "I have that and I have you, and you don't care. My life has been on hold for seven years, and you don't care. You're killing yourself, and you don't care. Well, I'm done, Dad. I love you, but I'm not doing this anymore. You need help, and until you get it, I have to be done."

"Look at her, Jimmy," Theresa spoke up when he huffed. "Look at what you're doing to your beautiful girl and to yourself. You know Johanna wouldn't want this for either of you. You fixed this once. You can do it again. I know you can."

Kate didn't even realize she'd started to cry, but she wiped a tear away when it slid down her cheek.

Jim pushed slowly forward in the chair, the room now quiet, and he rolled his body sideways until he was able to get himself up, his plate dropping to the floor unacknowledged.

"Jim," Theresa said firmly, but he turned his back to both of them and shuffled off to the kitchen without a word. When he was gone, she came for Kate and took her in her arms once again.


	15. Chapter 15

"Have you seen it out there?" Martha asked heading straight for the windows that lined Rick's office wall. "It's really coming down." He hadn't noticed the snow had begun to fall, to be honest, though he knew from listening to the radio on his way home from Kate's earlier that it was supposed to come. "They're saying it's going to last into the morning and then stop, but that there's another front behind it that could be even worse."

"That's great," Rick replied like he'd just heard good news, though she hadn't shared any.

He'd been in front of his laptop since he'd arrived home, foregoing the nap he'd needed for the task of trying to put words to paper, something he hadn't done in months. Peter had given him until the beginning of the new year to come up with a definitive idea for his owed novel, and that deadline was now just a couple of weeks away.

"I suppose if I'd come in here and told you I was going to dye my hair blue, your response might've been the same?" She wandered over to his desk when he didn't respond and stood in hover. "What is it that has all of your attention, Richard? What is it you're working so conscientiously at?"

"It's just some notes, an idea I started thinking about, that's all. I'm sorry, Mother. I'm listening."

"An idea for your next book?" she followed, her voice brimming with hope.

"I don't know, maybe," Rick said as he glanced at his phone. He hadn't heard from Kate since she'd let him know her aunt had arrived, and she usually always sent him something before she went to bed.

"Good for you, kiddo, I shall leave you so as not to disturb. Before I do, have you heard anything more from Katherine about how Jim's doing?"

"I haven't heard anything since her aunt got there, no, but I'm sure he's probably just sleeping."

Martha wrapped her robe around her body and tied it up. "Well, let her know I'm here if there's anything she needs, all right?"

"Thank you, Mother."

She moved off but stopped in the doorway and turned back. "Yes, the reason I came in here in the first place. I know the weather might be dreadful, but you told me I could take the car tomorrow to go and pick up the things I need to help make the costumes for my class. It's all supposed to be ready for me to collect by 4PM. Will you be sure to leave me the keys if you go out?"

"That reminds me," Rick said pretending to scribble himself a note, "I should make an appointment to have my head examined."

"Don't be fresh, Richard. As it always is, your precious hunk of metal will be put back in its parking space, safe and sound, when I am through."

"Beautiful words, Mother. Maybe Mercedes should hire you to write their next ad."

"Get some sleep, darling. You need it."

 **xxxx**

Kate couldn't sleep, could barely even settle enough to close her eyes after what she'd said to Jim, especially given his reaction, which had amounted, painfully, to little reaction at all. It'd been several hours since he'd walked away from her to fetch his beer, hours she'd spent alone with that image and all the hurt and anger that went along with it, and it suddenly began to feel as though the walls of the house, her home for nearly every one of her years, were closing in on her.

She finally threw off the covers in frustration and got out of bed just before 3AM, and in the dead of night stuffed some clothes and things into a backpack. It didn't matter to her what she had or didn't have; all she wanted was to get out and away, and that was exactly what she did.

With her messenger bag across her body and her backpack over her shoulder, she went downstairs to the kitchen and wrote a note for her aunt, which she left on top of the coffee maker where she knew it would be found in the morning, and she took off for the one other place she could be close to her mother, which she now needed more than ever.

The snow was still falling thick and fast, and visibility on the roads was terrible, but Kate had made that journey up to the cabin so many times, she could practically drive the route blindfolded. The storm would, no doubt, be worse as she moved north and neared the mountains, and she had no idea what she might find once she arrived, the house free of its most recent renters since just the day before, but she slowly made her way through the dark, the voices on the radio helping to keep her fatigued eyes alert.

What would normally be an easy ninety-minute drive took Kate nearly double that with the snow, and the night sky was just beginning to welcome morning's light when she pulled into the long driveway that led back to the cabin. The plow they hired each winter to keep things clear hadn't made it out, and she could hear the underside of the car scrape along the packed inches as she pushed through the white and towards the garage at the side.

The garage door wasn't electric, and she imagined she wouldn't be able to lift it without adequate leverage, so she didn't even try. With her bags in hand and her insufficient mid-calf boots on her feet, she stomped around to the front of the house-where a path, if visible, would normally have led her-and up underneath the porch's overhang, out of the flakes that continued to fall.

The lock box dangling from the door handle brought a fresh wave of anger, its purpose to allow the strangers renting her house access to a space they had no business being in. Money would never make better the emptiness of the house or the lack of time they now gave to spending there, and the idea that her father thought it could only served to reinforce how little she understood who he had become.

It was bitter cold when she stepped inside, so cold that her breath was still visible on the air after she shut the door behind her. She reached to her left, to the switch for the main living space's overhead light, but nothing happened when she flipped it, and between that and the temperature, she knew the power had to have been knocked out by the storm. Luckily, they had a portable generator out in the garage, which, after she had a chance to take a look around, she'd have to get up and running, and could, she hoped.

She pulled her boots off, blew warm air between her stiff hands and rubbed them together, her eyes wandering the room as she allowed them to acclimate to its dimness. Her mother had purposely never hung any treatments on the windows along the opposite wall, the ones that always seemed to bring the mountains right into the house, so the soft light of daybreak peeking through was able to provide her some aid.

It felt strange as she stood there, to be in a place that was hers yet to feel almost like it wasn't, the mark of so many unknown to her now left behind, and palpably so. With the sight of the grand, stone fireplace, though, she found a few seconds of calm, her mother's voice playing in her head, warning a young Kate not to sit so close because of the stray embers, and she leaned into that for the strength to take her first real steps inside.

The additional light provided by her phone helped guide her through each room, one of them her own, and she sat down on the bed there. It'd been stripped bare by the renters and felt cold, not with the storm, but with the loneliness of having been abandoned, which was really what they'd done, she and her father. She twisted flat and curled up, remembering, and within minutes, she was asleep.

 **xxxx**

By Monday afternoon, Rick still hadn't heard from Kate, and by then nearly twenty-four hours had passed. He'd been calling her cell phone all day, but it'd gone directly to her voicemail each time, as though it'd been turned off. Lanie, to whom he'd sent a text in search of help, hadn't been able to tell him anything, either, and while he knew he didn't really have cause for worry, he still couldn't help but feel it.

The snow had tapered off in the city late that morning, but had started up again a few hours later, as forecasters indicated it would, accumulation, thus far, nearing the seven-inch mark. Alexis had gone off to school-its day's schedule not canceled, merely delayed-and was soon to be home, Martha had already ventured out in his car to pick up the costume-making materials she needed for later that week, causing much of his hair to grey, figuratively speaking, and he paced the loft alone in wait.

He just couldn't shake it. He couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong with Kate, and at a certain point, he couldn't bring himself to continue to do nothing about it. It wasn't like her to be radio-silent, not with him, and without being able to reach her and without knowing how to reach Jim, other than showing up at their house and knocking on their front door, that was what he decided to do.

He made calls to both Martha and Alexis to let them know what he was going to do, and despite being fought on it with the weather as it was, he climbed into the Ferrari and left for Cornwall. The thing about the Ferrari, though, was that it wasn't designed for winter driving, its ground clearance suitable for a few inches at most, and he took it out rarely enough in the elements that winter tires were entirely unnecessary, so the drive ahead, he knew, would be a difficult one. Seeing Kate at the other end, however, would be worth every minute of it.

He continued to try to phone her during the trip up, but she never answered, and he found himself growing more and more anxious. The snow already had him on edge, as did the car he was in, and all he wanted was to get to the house, to be there and to see her, to know everything was okay.

It wasn't until well after dark that he arrived, what he assumed to be Theresa's car with its Pennsylvania license plate parked out front, but Kate's car wasn't in the driveway where she usually parked it, despite the fact that he knew she wasn't supposed to have gone into the bookshop that day so she could be with Jim. He wore only sneakers on his feet, because he hadn't taken the time to think before he'd left the loft, and there was no path shoveled to bring him to up to the door, so he tiptoed through the snow as best he could and rang the bell.

"Can I help you?" Theresa asked pulling the two sides of her sweater into her body with the chill of the outside air.

"Hi, you must be Kate's aunt. I'm Rick Castle."

Theresa reached out and grabbed him by the arm. "My God, Rick, get in here. It's freezing out there." She pushed the door closed and led him inside, where he found Jim angled back in his chair with a tray on his lap that held a plate of food and two bottles of beer. "Jim, Rick's here."

"I can see him, Theresa," he said, but offered no greeting.

"Is Kate here?" Rick asked, she his entire business there and, in that moment, the only thing he cared about. "I've been calling her phone all day, but it just goes straight to voicemail."

"Did you drive all the way up here from the city in this weather?" Theresa asked incredulously. "I'm not sure if that's sweet or screwy."

"I'm sorry. I just really want to see Kate. Where is she?"

Without giving him an answer, Theresa went off to the kitchen to get Kate's note.

"She left," Jim said plainly.

"Here you go, sweetie." Theresa handed Rick the note to read, though it didn't say much. "That's all we know. When I got up this morning to make the coffee, I found that. Didn't even hear her go."

Rick took the few seconds Kate's brief words required and pressed because he still knew nothing, and his tone gave away what'd quickly turned from worry to panic. "This doesn't say where she went. You don't know where she is?"

"She had a tough night last night, sweetie, but it says not to worry. I'm sure she just needed a little bit of space, that's all." She turned to Jim and gave him a look, one that Rick easily picked up on, and perhaps that'd been her intention.

"Why would she suddenly need space? When I left her yesterday, she seemed okay, given the circumstances." He raised a hand in Jim direction, as if to point out those circumstances. "I don't understand. What happened last night?"

"You want to tell him, Jimmy?"

"It's none of his business."

"Kate _is_ my business," Rick snapped.

Theresa touched Rick's arm. "Kate said some things that I think she'd wanted to say for a long time, and they weren't easy things. It was a lot for her."

"Things?" He turned his attention to Jim. "Things about what, about how all you do is drink all the time and about how you hardly pay any attention to her? About how she's given up her life for you and you don't even acknowledge that? Or how you care more about your precious job with the NYPD being gone than you do about your daughter being here? You know that room back there is the one place she can go in this house to feel any happiness, anymore, and you trashed it like it was nothing."

"Rick," Theresa said in an attempt to intervene.

"Kate has done everything in her power to take care of you when you needed her and you've given her nothing. You sit there in that chair every day and she's here but you don't see her. If you did, you'd know how fucking miserable she is because all she wants is her father, and he doesn't seem to care."

"You don't know what the hell you're talking about," Jim hissed, his fingers wrapped around one of the bottles. "You've been around for two minutes."

"Yeah, well, that's two minutes more than you ever are." Rick turned back to Theresa. "Where would she have gone? Please."

It took her no time at all. "Probably up to the cabin in the mountains."

Rick knew nothing about a cabin in the mountains. He'd never been told of it before. "Where is it? What's the address?"

Theresa knew it by heart, of course, with all the time she'd spent there over the years, and she gave it to him without hesitation. Rick plugged the address into his phone and walked out the front door, leaving it open behind him.

"Tell her we love her!" Theresa shouted after him, but he never looked back.

Seventy-four more miles, and he hoped like hell he'd find Kate when he got there.

 **xxxx**

Kate had slept more hours that day than she could believe, so her watch had told her, and she'd woken to the sound of the wind whistling through the old windows in her bedroom, her muscles achy with the cold. She flipped her phone over to check for messages, but the screen was black, what little remained of its battery power when she arrived having apparently drained while she slept. Her first task was to get the generator started, in case the power outage lasted into the night, because without it, doing much of anything would be difficult, at best.

God only knew how long it'd been since its motor had been turned over, and after too long struggling with it in the dark garage, frustrated, she abandoned her efforts. With that unavailable to her, all she had was the fireplace for cooking, for warmth, and for light, and she'd have to figure out how to get that started, too. No matter what else did or didn't happen, her phone was out of commission. That was certain. When she went looking for it, she discovered she'd left her charging cord back in Cornwall.

Luckily, a portion of the quart of wood they'd last purchased still remained, and though it was damp and required some unpleasant work freeing it from beneath the tarp on the deck, she was able to get several of the logs burning after stripping them of their bark and using the screwdriver she found next to a box of matches in the kitchen drawer to break them up into smaller pieces.

What she had remembered to grab on her way out of the house at 3AM was the loaf of bread and the jar of peanut butter, and thankfully so. There was no way she would've been able to stop for anything at that hour, and she could easily manage on that and the boxes of dry pasta they always had tucked up in the cabinet above the refrigerator until she could get to the local market. Jim's renters hadn't managed to find them as they'd found everything else.

Kate fixed herself a sandwich and took up a spot on a pillow in front of the fireplace, the blanket from the back of the couch draped over her shoulders. The windows off the back were speckled with snowflakes and she could barely make out the landscape beyond from where she sat, but the scene was still as beautiful as a piece of art, and its silence like a dream.

They'd always spent more time there as a family in the warmer months, when the grass was tall and the days were long, but she'd always loved being there with the snow. It'd almost felt like their own world on those occasions, the separation from their neighbors around them feeling even more pronounced with the increased hush.

Her father would always take her out with her red plastic sled, and he'd pull her around when she grew tired of walking up the nearby hill over and over again after riding it down, never once complaining about his own fatigue, which, given the many hours they'd spend, must've been considerable, and they'd always returned home to a roaring fire and to her mother's hot chocolate with extra marshmallows.

As Kate sat before it now, the aroma of the burning wood had her right back there in the glow of those cherished hours, back there with the father she wanted to remember, the one she desperately wanted to have back with her, and with the mother she'd returned to that place to draw new strength from for whatever lay ahead.

She read from Johanna's collection of books by the fire's light as the grey of afternoon came and went, and she thought about the night in the Hamptons when she'd read to Rick from his pages. She hadn't spoken to him since the previous afternoon when he'd headed back to the city, and she longed to hear his voice. Even when he thought his words weren't enough, for her they were always an elixir.

When her eyes grew weary of fighting with the dark, she let the flames burn out, and she curled up on the couch beneath her coat and the blanket to sleep. It was just after she faded that the power returned, the one switch she'd left up to signal her bathing the kitchen in soft yellow, but it wasn't until several hours later that she was jolted awake, and by a tremendous noise that instantly had her pulse racing with fright.

A second thud followed just behind and it came from the front of the house; that much she knew, though it was far less extreme in its impact than the first. She threw her covers off, jumped up and went into the kitchen, armed herself with the scissors in the first drawer she opened, and made her way towards the front door. They would hardly intimidate as a weapon, she knew, but at least she figured she had something in hand, and the restoration of power was an undeniable blessing, in more ways than one.

She first took a deep breath, then opened the door but a sliver and peeked into the darkness, her focus outward not downward, and that was when she heard the voice say her name, the voice she'd been longing to hear.

He was on the porch on his back, his body on top of the snow that'd been blown there by the wind. She could see no car in the driveway, just Rick, alone, and he wasn't moving.

"Oh, my God, Rick," she said as she knelt over him, covered his cheeks with her warm hands. "What the hell did you do?"

He coughed out a reply and attempted to roll his body, but he couldn't manage to move without her help. She tugged at his jacket with everything she had and maneuvered him into a seated position. "Kate," he whispered, terribly grateful to see her despite the condition he was in.

"Rick, we have to get you inside, but you have to help me." She crawled around behind him, slid her hands beneath his armpits. "Don't get up, babe. Don't get up. Just try to push backwards when I pull you if you can, okay?"

With him helping to push, even as limited as his ability was, and using her surge of adrenaline to their advantage, Kate was able to get him over the threshold and into the house, and as he lay there on the wood floor, his exposed skin red and raw from the wind, she began to undress him as quickly and as carefully as she could.

His clothes were soaked with sweat and snow, not remotely fit for winter, and she left them in a pile beside him before running to retrieve the blanket she had wrapped around her own body as she slept. With him covered, she went to the linen closet in the hallway for towels, most of which were gone, used by the passers-through and still to be cleaned, but she came back with what she could find.

"Okay, babe, I've got you," she said settling his head against her chest and cradling him into her arms as she draped him in layers of warmth. "I've got you. Christ, Rick, how the hell did you get here?" she thought aloud.

"You didn't answer your phone," he responded plainly through chattering teeth, like they were having just another conversation.

Kate thought back on the previous night she'd had with her father and how she'd just had to get away. "I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking." She rested her cheek along the top of his head and her skin twitched at the chill. "I have to get you warm, first," she said knowing how much they had to talk about. "I just have to get you warm."


	16. Chapter 16

Kate held Rick for nearly an hour before either of them moved again, the soft sound of his breath as it eased from the grip of the cold one most welcome. Between the layers of covering and her body's heat, his skin had warmed and his muscles had relaxed enough to allay her concern, certainly helped by the fact that the electricity's return already had the room's temperature up considerably.

"Babe, do you want to move over to the couch?" she asked at his ear. "My butt's asleep from sitting on this floor for so long."

Rick tried to rotate his head, but her hold on him was still too tight. "It hasn't been so bad for me with you as a pillow," he said, his playful words a clear sign of his improvement. "I definitely won't complain about getting horizontal with you, though. Give me a push."

She set her hands behind his shoulders and angled his body upwards. "How about we just try sitting for a little while and see where things go, huh? I have a few questions, as you might imagine."

Still seated, he rotated so he could see her face. "I didn't even know if you'd be here. I'm so glad I found you."

"I'm glad you found me, too, because I don't know how much longer you would've lasted out there dressed like you were. What the hell were you thinking, Rick?"

He pushed up on all fours, the blanket and towels falling free of his body. "How about we get my clothes into the dryer first, and then you tell me what an idiot I was? I know right now you think that's important, but I have kind of a situation here that could definitely benefit from some focused heat," he said, glancing down his body at one of his most prized possessions.

Part of her was angry about what he'd done, and seemingly so foolishly, but even after what he'd been through, whatever that was, he was still utterly himself, and though she tried not to, Kate couldn't help but smile.

"Wrap that stuff around you and go sit," she told him. "I'll take care of your clothes." Rick steadied himself on his feet and Kate stepped in close. "And, trust me. You don't have any kind of a situation there you need to worry about."

"I think Lanie would be very proud of your bedside manner, Nurse Beckett," he teased with a kiss of her cheek. "Hurry back so you can double as my pillow, again. That's been my favorite part of this vacation, so far."

"Vacation," she echoed in a chuckle. "No power, no heat, no phone, and peanut butter sandwiches. Yeah, some vacation."

"Okay, yours doesn't sound as fun as mine."

She plucked his wet clothes from the floor and carried them off, left him to finally get a quick glimpse at the place he'd fought so hard to reach. It was modest, but perfectly so, in that way that felt homey, not confining, and it smelled just as a cabin should, of cedar and old smoke, a scent that somehow felt so familiar yet one he hadn't experienced often.

"Now that I can, I'm going to make some tea," Kate said when she came back into the room. "The power just came back on while I was asleep. It's been out since I got here."

"So, what did you do all day, I mean besides think of me, obviously?" She pointed to the couch, tossed him an eyebrow, and he sat. "You're bossy on this vacation, but, actually, I think it might be helping with that situation I mentioned," he said taking a frisky peek at his lap.

Kate disappeared into the kitchen but kept talking as she prepared the kettle. "Sorry, but don't even try to distract me with that thing, at least not until you tell me what happened and how you got here."

"Does that mean if I-"

"Talk," she said over whatever retort he'd cooked up.

"Fine, but can you at least sit next to me while I do? I did something stupid, maybe, but I think I earned that much. Also, you'll have less leverage to smack me when you hear some of it, which I'd kind of like." Kate came around the couch and dropped down beside him, her curiosity only heightened after his remark. "Okay, I guess I'll start by sharing this tip: Don't drive a Ferrari in a snow storm."

"You drove up here in your Ferrari? Are you kidding me?"

"My mother was out with the Mercedes, I had no choice," he replied swiftly in his own defense, "and, honestly, Kate, I wasn't even thinking about the weather. All I was thinking about was making sure you were okay." She reached out and stroked his cheek with her fingertips. "When I finally made it up here and took the final turn onto your street, I couldn't get the car up the hill. It kept sliding back down, so I left it and walked the rest of the way, hence the collapse onto your front porch."

"Rick, it's at least a mile to the house from that turn."

"Oh, trust me. I am very aware of how far it is. Here's another tip: Don't wear sneakers in a snow storm."

"So, aside from nearly freezing to death, you just left your hundred-thousand dollar car sitting out there on the road somewhere?"

He kicked the blanket back out over his exposed feet. "I don't care about my car, Kate," he said with a dismissive puff, and she eyed him skeptically. "Okay, I care about my car, but not nearly as much as I care about you. You'd be, like, the Alaska of Rick-Castle-care amounts and my car would be the Rhode Island."

"Mm-hmm," Kate hummed. "If your phone still works, I can try to call Pat and let him know so he can watch out for it when he's out with the plow. I haven't heard his truck come through, yet."

"Thank you, now can we get back to the part where I was so unbelievably heroic for driving up here in this storm and walking all that way to find you?"

"If by heroic, you mean idiotic, we absolutely can. Rick, you could've really gotten hurt out there, or worse, and I wasn't lost in the first place. I didn't need to be found."

Her tone had abruptly changed, and he didn't like it.

"Well, you felt lost to me, Kate. Your father had just been in an accident, and then I didn't hear from you for more than a day, and that wasn't normal for us. With everything you've had going on with him, I got worried, and if you're looking for me to apologize for that, it won't happen, no matter how much you wanted to be alone."

The kettle began to whistle and Kate got up without saying anything to attend to it. She returned a couple of minutes later with two mugs in hand and set them both on the table.

"I told him I couldn't do it anymore," she said, her voice delicate with the fresh ache of Jim's indifference. "I told him he needed help, that he was killing himself and that was killing me, and that my mother would hate it if she could see what he was doing."

He settled a hand at the back of her neck. "What did he say?"

"What did he say?" she repeated back before a notable pause. "He told me he'd get his fucking beer himself is what he said."

Rick got up off the couch and walked away, only to turn back after a few steps. "Christ, Kate, I hate this for you. You don't deserve any of this." He came back to her again, because there were still things to be said, things she wasn't going to like. "I need to tell you something, and you're probably going to get angry with me, but I can't change it now."

His eyes shifted away and she pulled him back. "Change what?" she asked, before she thought about whether or not she really wanted to hear the answer.

"When I couldn't reach you and Lanie couldn't reach you and I didn't know how to reach your dad, I just got in the car and went to the house, thinking I'd find you there, and I said some things to him, too-some ugly things."

"What are you talking about?" She moved to the coffee table and sat across from him. "What things?"

"I was already upset when I got there, Kate, and then the way he was, I just, I got angry."

"Rick, what things?"

"Things like how you take care of him every single day and he barely acknowledges you're there. About how he seems to care more about a fucking bottle than he does about how devastated his daughter is. About how you've given up years of your life for him and he's given you little in return. That's what I said, Kate, and probably more."

She didn't know how to respond. She didn't know if she was angry or glad or a million other things, but one thing she was sure of was that she wasn't surprised. She wasn't surprised he'd tried to protect her, to fight for her, to help her, because that was exactly the man he was.

"I'm sorry you had to do that."

"Your aunt loves you, by the way. She told me to tell you that as I stormed out the door. Unfortunately, she witnessed the entire thing."

"I know she does, and did you hear me?"

"Look, I love you, too, Kate, and you don't have to be sorry. You have nothing to be sorry for, I do. Even though I believe everything I said to him was the truth, I stepped over the line. I know how sensitive a situation it is and it wasn't my place. The last thing I want to do is make things harder for you."

"At this point, I don't know if harder is even possible, Rick, but whatever you said, I know why you said it, and I love _you_ for that, and for being someone no one else has ever been." He extended a hand and pulled her into his lap when she took it. "You're a real mess, you know that?" she said running her fingers through his disheveled hair.

"Maybe while my clothes are drying, we hop in the shower and you help me with that."

"That reminds me," she announced suddenly. "I should try to call Pat. Where's your phone?"

"Coat, inside pocket," he said. "And exactly which part of my plan for you to soap me up in the shower reminded you of the snow plow guy?"

Kate went back into the kitchen and came out with a list of phone numbers. "The part where your very expensive car is a mile down the road in the snow, and when I soap you up, I don't want your mind wandering to your very expensive car that's a mile down the road in the snow."

"Again, the car, Rhode Island," Rick said, "especially if you're going to be naked at some point in the near future."

"Give me a minute, and drink your tea," she told him. "You need it. You almost froze to death on my porch an hour ago." She took his phone from his coat and wandered down the hallway with it.

"You sound very much like Martha Rodgers when you drama like that," he hollered to no reply, then did as she instructed and drank from his mug.

Two minutes later, she was back. "He got a late start and he still has a bunch of people to take care of, but he said he'll be here by morning to clear the driveway. When I mentioned the Ferrari, he told me he'd have his son tow it up here for you once the road's clear enough. I don't know if you have any cash on you, but if you do, they're doing you a huge favor, so you should be generous."

"I probably have a couple, three hundred on me. I'll check, but whatever it is, it's all theirs," he said before drinking down the last sip. "Tea's all gone, Nurse Beckett, per your orders." He got up and met her. "Time for a quick shower?"

"Second door on the right. I'll be right in."

"I like that sound of that. I'm going to take phone with me. I know it's late, but I, at least, want to let my mother know everything's okay."

Kate wished she could do the same.

 **xxxx**

As a result of the power outage, the water in the shower had to run a bit to get hot, and Kate peeled off her clothes as Rick's eyes unapologetically drank her in. She released her hair for the first time in hours, and it tumbled down her back as a cloud of steam began to crawl across the air, as everything around them began to blur and fade away.

She stepped inside first but left the glass door open behind her, an invitation of the tallest order had the look she'd given him just before not succeeded in making that unmistakably clear, and already absent any clothing, himself, he followed, her body meeting his in an instant.

Kate backed him against the wall, the sound of the spray in its unobstructed pounding of the tile immersive, almost hypnotic, as she pressed herself into him until closer no longer existed. Slowly and deeply she kissed him, like it was her final taste and she never wanted it to end, and when she shifted ever so slightly and took him in hand, the delicious gasp that escaped his lips already had her ready.

"Please, Kate, you…" he exhaled in a breath when she rotated her fingers.

"What?" she asked with a grin more wicked than amused.

"Fuck, you have to stop doing that. You have to."

But she didn't, and instead intensified her pressure deliberately. "I don't want to stop. And it doesn't feel like you want me to stop. It doesn't sound like you want me to stop."

He leaned in and kissed her neck, let his tongue sample the warm beads that clung to her skin. "God, I don't, but I want to take you to bed," he told her. "I want to know what you feel like here."

Kate took one of his hands and placed it on her breast. "Can you feel that?" she asked with a coy bite of her lip.

"Oh, you don't play fair."

"Never said I did."

Rick looked into her eyes, his palm flat against her chest, and let a still moment pass. "You know what I can feel, Kate? I can feel your heart, and I know it's broken." Her arms circled his waist and she clung to him. "I promise I'll try to make this better. I promise."

 **xxxx**

"Did it feel like you thought it would?" Kate asked him as they lay in the dark, his body covered more by hers than by the spare quilt she'd pulled from her closet.

They hadn't wasted time drying their skin; rather he'd carried her directly from the heat of the shower's pulse to her bed, and had done everything her whispers had pleaded of him.

"It felt incredible," he said, her wet hair still wrapped around his fingers. "Like it's never been but always is," if that makes any sense.

"I think it does." She pressed her lips against his skin. "I've never done that in this bed before."

"Which part?"

"All of it."

"Is that so?" Rick beamed vaingloriously to a purposely reactionless Kate. "Hey, speaking of this bed, how come you've never told me about this place? Not that you had to, it's just that it must be important to you if it's where you wanted to come."

Kate rolled onto her back, her arm left draped across his middle. "We've had it since I was a kid, and we used to come up here a lot, mostly in the summers when I was out of school and my dad had time off. My mom always loved it for the quiet. She could finish two books in a day up here." There was a softness in her voice, but it quickly disappeared as she went on. "My dad decided to start renting it out this summer to anyone that wanted it."

"He didn't talk to you about it first." That was evident, hence the statement rather than a question.

"Except for the time I spent away at school, I've lived my entire life in that house, Rick. I don't have a lot of places I can go. This place was one of them, and I would never want anyone else to be here, not with all my mom's things. I don't know," she said after a long moment, "maybe I'm holding on too tight, maybe I need to let go."

He curled onto his side, slid his fingers between hers. "Maybe you do and maybe you don't, but no one can or should make that decision for you, Kate. You need whatever time you need, and that's how long it should take."

She found his lips in the dark and kissed him. "You're pretty wise in your old age, Mr. Castle."

"Watch it," he warned, but playfully. "So, I think I'd like to share something with you if that's okay."

"Of course you can, always."

"I um, I was walking down Fifth Avenue one morning in the spring last year, and there was a man on the sidewalk next to me, about my age, dressed handsomely in a blue pinstripe suit with a briefcase in his hand. That wasn't why I noticed him, obviously; at that hour, I was surrounded by men in blue pinstripe suits with briefcases, but he was talking to someone on the phone with such passion that I couldn't help but tune in to what he was saying."

A tiny sound fell into the lull from Kate's parted lips.

"What was that for?"

"I'm sorry, keep going. I was just imagining you in a blue pinstripe suit, that's all."

"Behave, and let me finish. There's actually a point to this, believe it or not."

"I will, I promise."

"As I was saying, I was listening to this man talk, and it was obvious that it was his wife on the other end of the line, because it was all about their son and how she would never be able to keep him from him and from spending time with him, despite the ugly divorce they were in the middle of. But, Kate, this man was in tears by the time he hung up. This man with his perfect outward appearance was in absolute knots inside over the possibility of not being able to be with his son, and I still don't know why it was that moment for me, but it was. I knew right then, out there on the street, that I had to write about what it felt like to live without a father, so I went home and that's what I did."

"Rick, that's why you wrote _Without_?"

"You'll know when you're ready, Kate. You'll feel it and you'll just know, and as much as you or any of us wants your father to be ready, he's going to have to know when he knows, too. You've done and you've given everything you have, everything you can, and you deserve to live a life that you want. Hopefully, that life includes me."

She tugged gently on the hand still wrapped around hers until he settled between her legs, his chin perched between her breasts.

"I love that you told me that story. It's really beautiful, and I wish you didn't have that pain inside of you."

"I wish you didn't, either," he said and he tucked his hands beneath her shoulders, lowered his head to her chest and let it rest there. "Maybe the universe realized we could help each other and it steered me off that exit ramp towards you that day."

"Is that really what you think it was?" she asked, not disbelieving but curious.

"Well, it was either fate or my stomach growled, one of the two."

"Ah, the far less romantic truth comes out," she said drawing her fingers through his hair. "Whatever happens, Rick, my life will always include you. That's the life I want."

"Thank God," he said groggily, and he managed a faint "Sleep with me" before he was out.

 **xxxx**

The whir of heat flowing through the floor register next to the bed woke Rick early that Tuesday morning, yet he felt surprisingly refreshed following those few welcome hours of sleep. He managed to successfully extricate himself without rousing Kate, save for a sweet stir that had him wishing life came with a rewind button, and he made his way out to the kitchen, his body still bare, as it had been virtually since he'd arrived.

He put some water on for tea and constructed himself a double-decker peanut butter sandwich, which he ate down in seconds after so long without a meal, and then he began to wander, to explore the place in new light.

There were touches of her mother all around-a sketch of Mark Twain hung beside the dining table, a 'Kiss the professor' tile in the kitchen, soap in the shape of a fanned collection of books at the bathroom sink-and he thought of Kate everywhere he looked. He saw her as she was now in all of it.

"Do we all have to be naked for this tour or is what I'm wearing okay?" Kate teased when she found him studying a collection of family photographs arranged along the fireplace mantel.

"I can tell you my preference," Rick answered in suggestive tone, "but there's no requirement. I just like to make sure my ticket holders get their money's worth." She crossed to him and he pulled her in. "How did you sleep, beautiful? I hope I didn't wake you."

"Good, and no, I heard the plow, actually. Pat must've had a rough night if he just made it out here."

"I already have some water on for morning tea, as proper folks do."

Kate pinched his backside. "Yeah, because proper folks usually walk around their friends' houses buck naked," she said, the kettle beginning its whistle in the background. "I'll get that, you get pants. They're still in the dryer from last night-closet in the hallway."

"The breakfast idea I had was going to be a lot more fun, by the way."

"Well, if you can put something on until Pat's done and his son brings your car up, I promise I'll take it off you again once they're gone, and then we can spend the rest of the day doing what we did our last night in Paris."

"Will you even let me-"

She grinned at him and he took off down the hallway, returning in no time with his phone in hand. "Okay, dress code met, but phone dead. I think I might have a charger in the glove box of the car, unless I left it in the Hamptons over the summer. I don't take the Ferrari out a lot."

"Only in blizzards and stuff," Kate quipped.

"Heroic," he whispered with a flex of his bicep. "Hey, who's been watching the shop, by the way? I just realized I never asked."

She handed him his mug and they parked themselves on the couch. "When I talked to Margaret on Sunday about my dad and the accident, she told me to take a few days. I should get back for tomorrow, though. It's weird how just a couple of days away can feel like a lifetime."

"Okay, listen, I'm going to just put something out there and you can think about it or not, it's totally up to you."

"You sound very serious, all of a sudden. That worries me. It's so unlike you."

"Now's my turn to be bossy on our vacation. Drink your tea and listen. What if you came to the loft and stayed with me-with me and the girls-and you finished school, and you went on to become a professor like your mom, like you've always wanted to? You're young, Kate, and you can still make all of that happen. You can still have those things."

"Rick-"

"I know, and maybe it sounds crazy, but I don't think it is. It's just making a choice for yourself, for once. You can love your father from anywhere, Kate."

Just then, the sound of a horn came pouring in from outside, and Kate got up and went over to the front door. "It's Pat's son with your car. Do you want to come out?"

Of all the bad timing, that was some of the worst.

"My wallet's in the other room. Let me go get it. I'll meet you out there," he said, and he cursed his damn car the whole way.


	17. Chapter 17

"He was really worried about you, you know," Lanie told Kate, speaking about Rick and his phone call from days prior when he couldn't reach her. "The man definitely loves you like crazy. There's no question about that. I mean, driving a Ferrari in a snowstorm, ditching it, and then walking a mile in the dark? Girl, that is just plain nuts. It sounds like something that should be in one of his books."

Following her overnight shift at the hospital, Lanie stopped by the bookshop before it opened that Wednesday morning, Kate having texted her that she'd be in early to catch up on everything she'd missed over the past couple of days, if she wanted to come say hello.

"Yeah, I know. I told him it was a really stupid thing to do, and then I thanked him a lot for it," she said with a smile, her intimation unambiguous.

"That's my girl," Lanie praised proudly.

Kate pulled in the stool behind her and sat. "He, um, he had this idea about me going to live with him in the city and finishing school there so I can teach."

"And why the hell do you say it like that?"

"What do you mean? Like what?"

"I mean like Rick isn't a brilliant man. Kate, being a teacher like your mom is what you've always wanted to do. The rich and famous author boyfriend wasn't always in the plan, but I think he's a pretty good addition."

"Lanie, it's not that easy. I can't just go do whatever I want. I have this place and my dad and-"

"Look at me right now," Lanie interrupted, her tone firm, "and listen up good. You do not hold up the world with your two hands, Kate Beckett. We're not all suddenly going to fall to pieces because you decide it's time to follow your dreams. It's what all of us want for you, me, Rick, obviously, the Whitmans, and, yes, even your dad, Kate. I know things with him have been tougher lately, but he's a grown man, and his choices are his own. They aren't your responsibility, no matter how much you love him."

"And there's the radio station, too."

"You know what, maybe you should stop looking at the reasons you think you can't, and start looking at the reasons you can. My guess is that list will outweigh the other. Kate, look, you're one of the strongest human beings I have ever known, and one of the least kind to herself. It isn't selfish to want things and it isn't selfish to go after them, not when you've spent as long as you have giving to everybody else."

"So, you think I should do it?"

Lanie walked around the counter and hugged her. "You know all too well that we don't always have the time we think we do, and that just because we have today, doesn't mean we'll have tomorrow. I also think you know what you _want_ to do or you would've already said no and we wouldn't be having this conversation. Okay, I'm going to go and let you do your thing, mostly because I'm exhausted from standing on my feet all night and I don't want to do it anymore, but if you want to talk, call me much later so you don't wake me up," she said jokingly.

"I love you a lot. Thank you, Lanie."

"I love you a lot, too, girl. Now, how about you try loving yourself that much?"

 **xxxx**

Kate arrived home after work to an empty house, her aunt and her father both gone, but she thought it just as well, because what she had to do, the decision she had to make, was hers alone.

Without stopping to set her bag down or even turn on a light, she went into her mother's office and closed the door. Sitting at the desk, she pulled out a pad of paper and pen, and then she closed her eyes.

In a way she couldn't quite understand, the room felt warmer than it normally did, almost like there was something else there with her, some energy or force, and that brought a sensation of peace unlike she'd experienced within those walls since she'd been there with her mother.

Lanie's words had resonated, and she'd spent the entire day hearing them in her head, so she began to pen the list she'd suggested, one comprised of reasons she either should or shouldn't make the greatest active change of her life, but one with potential ramifications she couldn't possibly know, and that was where her fear lay, in that unknown.

The cracked and broken frame that housed the photograph of her newlywed parents was still on the desk beside her, and she glanced at it occasionally while she wrote. In its state, it was all at once a wonderful and an awful representation of where she currently found herself, locked somewhere between hope and fracture.

She looked down at the page after a long while spent scribbling words, and studied it as though someone had just handed it to her for the first time, almost surprised by some of what she saw there. It was almost surreal, not real life, the curves and lines that'd become part of her world over the collection of years since she'd come back to that house- _Alone_. _Drunk. Settle. Disappointed-_ yet there they were in black and white, staring back at her, true.

It was tucked away in her sweater pocket, but her phone rang then, and when she saw his name written across the positively goofy photo he'd taken of himself just for her, she instantly felt herself calm.

"Hey," she said, the simplicity of the word unequal to the relief of his entrance.

"Hey, yourself, how was today? I know the first day back after summer vacation is never much fun," Rick said in jest.

"Some of us actually have jobs where we like to go to work, you know, and it was two days of snow, hardly summer. Plus, you came busting in, so I really didn't get much of a vacation, did I?"

"The way I remember it, you rather enjoy me busting in, but I do see your point. I know I just kissed you goodbye last night, but I miss you," he said after a shared smile.

Her pen had traced the letters of his name over and over again until it appeared larger on the page than all the other words around it, and she stared at it until her eyes blurred with tears.

"Rick, I think…"

She stopped herself there, not because there wasn't more she wanted to say, but because she wanted to make certain she said it right, exactly as she felt it in that moment.

"What? Tell me what you think."

"God, I wish you were here so I could say this to you face-to-face," she thought aloud. "Actually, are you busy on Friday night? Can you come to the station for my show?" She needed to see him for this. He needed to be there.

"Of course I can. I'll be there. Oh, and don't worry, I'll drive the Benz this time," he said.

 **xxxx**

Kate had butterflies in her stomach the entire day, knowing what she'd be doing that night, knowing what it would mean, and nothing was able to quiet them. She stopped in at Smith's on her way to the station with need of a dose of Dot and her unique way, and she left there grateful, and with the light she hoped would carry her through.

She found Rick already waiting for her in the parking lot still behind the wheel, tucked away from the bitter December air, and he climbed from the car as soon as he saw her, met her with a kiss that made all the difficult hours before it fade away.

"That's how much I've missed you, that kiss much," he said spotting the cup of coffee in her hand. "Okay, that can't possibly still be from this morning, not the way you guzzle down that stuff. Did you stop and see my best girl? Or, rather my second…fourth best girl?"

"I did, and Dot sends her inappropriate love, as always."

"I can always count on her." He blew a rush of warm air between his clasped hands. "Inside, maybe? It's very wintry out here."

Kate led him inside, past a focused Josh who walked by with his eyes glued to a stack of papers and without a greeting, and towards the booth. He hadn't been there in some time, but he always relished any opportunity to listen to her, so the question as to why she'd wanted him to come up for the show hadn't been one he'd asked.

"He seemed excited to see me," Rick said facetiously of Josh as he stripped off his coat. "I love that he's such a big fan."

"I can try and set up a playdate if you want," Kate retorted.

"Yeah, thanks, but I'm pretty sure I'm busy that day."

Kate grabbed a handful of his cashmere v-neck and pulled him in. "Behave, please, there's actually a point to this, believe it or not," she said, mimicking his very words from the cabin. "Now, I'm going to work. You sit here and take notes for the quiz later."

"And me without my apple."

She kissed him quickly and left him, the time near and her heart beginning to race.

 **xxxx**

Rick listened intently to every second of her two hours, to every syllable, to every word on every page, and he never took his eyes off of her. How much he couldn't have imagined he'd come to feel when he first saw her through the bookshop's window that Saturday in June, what little idea he'd had about the depth of romantic love he could feel for anyone, yet there he was, the beneficiary of some cosmic doing that'd seen fit to perpetuate its gift.

Beyond the glass, Kate had finished her reading and closed the book, and he gave her a smile when she glanced his way. Only the evening's phone calls remained, the part of the show that always made him laugh inside over the fool of himself he'd once made, and she spoke briefly with several listeners before announcing she had something personal to share.

His curiosity brought him to his feet and up to the window between them, as though somehow he'd be able to better hear her words, though they were already being sufficiently cast from a speaker that hung in the corner.

And then she said it.

"I wish I knew how to adequately express how much this show and this experience has meant to me. It is something I'm incredibly proud of, and something I hold dear for many reasons, but I've come to a point in my life where I've had to make a decision, one that has been both very easy and very difficult to make.

She cleared her throat, an attempt to combat the lump of emotion that'd planted itself there, Rick imagined, but he could see it all right there on her face.

"My final show here at the station is going to be next Friday night, and I want to thank each and every one of you for all you've done for me over my time here with you. While you may not know exactly what it is you've done, I assure you, it's been remarkable."

She removed her headphones and pushed back from the desk, Josh giving a nod, and she came around the door for Rick, who was struggling to make sense of what it was he'd just heard.

"Kate, I don't understand. You're not doing your show, anymore? You love doing this show. What happened?"

"I want the city. I want to go back to school. I want to teach like my mom. I want you, Rick, and I want all of those things more than I want this."

"Wait a minute. Hang on," he said shuffling off in a tiny circle and then coming back to her. "You're coming to the city? To be with me?"

He was so unbelievably stunned that she couldn't help but find amusement in it. "Well, with Martha, really, but since you live there, too, I guess, technically, yeah. Is that okay?"

He swept her up in his arms, much in the way Monty always did, and he wouldn't let her go. "Okay isn't even in the ballpark of what it is. God, I love you so much, and I promise I'll do whatever you need me to do to make this work."

"I love you, too," Kate said, and as she turned her head and set her cheek on his shoulder, there was Josh beyond the glass, with a smile for her.

 **xxxx**

Rick stayed only the night in Cornwall and drove back to the city early on Saturday with Kate having to work, and it hit him somewhere around the halfway point that it was the last time he'd ever again have to leave her after a night together. Their home would now be one, and he was just bursting at the seams to tell Martha and Alexis of the news.

It being the weekend, they'd both slept in, and he found them making breakfast when he arrived home, his level of morning energy far beyond the weariness he walked into.

"Well, don't you look as though you've swallowed about a dozen canaries, darling, and at this hour? Should we be worried about what it is you've been out doing?" Martha said.

"It's after 10AM, Mother, and, no, you shouldn't be worried. This isn't smugness, it's euphoria." He stepped up to the breakfast bar and kissed Alexis on the cheek. "And I see you're cooking. Should all the tenants in this building be worried?" She shook the spatula at him and he tossed her a wink.

"How was Kate's show, Dad? Why did she want you to be there?"

Rick plopped onto the stool beside her. "Actually, about that, I have something to tell you both, and I hope you'll be as excited about it as I am."

"Oh, my God, Richard, you're getting married," Martha chimed in with what could only be described as a squeal, and Alexis' head snapped in his direction.

"Thank you for that, Mother," he said twisting his knuckle into his ear, "but that's not, no, that's not it. Kate is going to be coming to live here at the loft, though. I had no idea it was going to happen, but that's why she wanted me to come up last night, to be there when she announced it to her listeners."

"When is this happening?" Alexis asked.

"We're going to try to get what we can of her things down here next weekend." He put his hand down on the bar and Alexis took it. "Guys, I know this is sudden, and that's Christmas weekend and everything, and I didn't talk to you about it first and I should have, but I love her, and I really believe this is important for her and will be amazing for us."

Martha tried to flip and catch one of her pancakes, but it fell to the floor. "Don't even say it," she told him. "Richard, I think I speak for both of us when I say we love Katherine, too, and even more than that, we love you, so if this is what you want, if this makes you both happy, we shall welcome her with open arms."

Alexis nodded and squeezed his hand.

"I'm the luckiest man in the world, and I know it, thank you both. Okay, now, can you please put that spatula down and let the true chef of the family take over so there's actually something left to eat? I'm starving," he said.

 **xxxx**

Kate went out to Merle and Margaret's place on her Sunday off to talk to them about her leaving the bookshop and ended up driving away in tears. The pair had become like grandparents to her, family, and their kindnesses and trust over the years had been invaluable to her daily survival, but they told her they knew what her time with them was and what it wasn't, and that they'd always imagined that day would come, and they sent her off with only the warmest of thanks and the best of wishes.

She would still be overseeing things there for the next week, and what they planned to do beyond that time, the Whitmans said they would have to discuss, but there was mention of the possibility of selling, and for Kate, that thought was heartbreaking.

Nearly everyone that needed to now knew of her impending departure. After the announcement during her show, which her aunt had listened to, Lanie had been next in line to hear of it, since she'd been such an integral part of the decision, and she'd been as pleasantly surprised as pleasantly surprised could be, even offering to help Kate move her things, which, as it turned out, was both extended in the spirit of support and in a desire to get her eyes on the penthouse loft of a world famous novelist. Kate had politely declined her services.

Dr. Burke was up next, and she'd arranged that special Monday evening session because she imagined it might be too difficult to get away during her last Friday at the store.

"And when did you make this decision?" he asked her, pen poised.

"Recently, why? You think it's a bad one?"

Burke set his pen on the notepad in his lap. "Why would you ask that?"

"Because that's how it sounded."

"I'm sorry, that wasn't my intention, but I find it not uninteresting that that's what you thought you heard. Do you think it's a bad decision, Kate?"

She was nervous and she was scared, but not once since she'd chosen to go had it felt anything but right.

"No, I wouldn't be going if I thought it was," she said.

He sat with her assurance and watched her for a long moment, and she never broke contact. To him, that spoke volumes. "Good. What did your father say when you told him you were leaving?"

That's when she looked away.

"I haven't, yet. We haven't said a whole lot to each other since I came back from the cabin the other night, and after what I said to him before I went up there."

"When do you plan on telling him?"

"He probably wouldn't even notice I was gone," Kate replied offhandedly. Burke gave her a look, a subtle look, but one she'd been on the receiving end of many times before. She didn't really believe what she'd said and he knew that. "Rick's coming up on Friday so we can move my things on Saturday morning. I guess I'll tell him then."

"So, you'll be spending Christmas with Rick and his family, this year."

"We didn't plan it for the holiday weekend. It just happened that way," Kate replied defensively.

"That wasn't judgment, Kate, just an observation."

She started in on her cuticle without even realizing it. "My aunt's been with us since the accident, and she already knows about everything. She wasn't supposed to be in town this long, but she stayed for me, and she told me she'd be with him, so I could go." Too many joyless Christmases had already gone by.

"If you'd like to leave him my contact information, you certainly can. I'd be more than happy to refer him to one of my colleagues."

"Maybe," Kate said. "Thanks."

"I can do the same for you. I know some good people in the city."

The thought of beginning anew with someone else was a daunting one for her, and one she just couldn't imagine. They'd done too much work together, come too far, and her trust in him ran too deep.

"If it's okay with you, I'd like be able to come and see you if I want to or if I need to. Obviously, it won't be as often, but you already know me, and I don't want to start all over again."

"Of course it's okay, Kate, and I like to believe I know my patients, but give them some time and people will usually find ways to surprise you."

He was talking about her. She was thinking of her father.

 **xxxx**

The week had come and gone in a flash, and before she knew it, Kate found herself saying goodbye to Josh for only the second time in her life, the first long ago on the night before she'd left for Northwestern. Things had been different then-easier, but by no means easy-and so much had changed for and between them in all the years between, but there would never be a time she wouldn't love him.

"He's tall," Josh said as they stood alone in his office following the end of her last show. "Not as tall as me, but."

Rick had decided to allow her those last hours there for herself, to experience them without the distraction his presence might bring, and though she'd fought him on it, when it was all said and done, she'd realized he was right.

"Maybe you're too tall. Maybe that was our problem all along," she replied with a half-smile. "That and you were a jerk sometimes."

"Yeah," he said in a tone far more serious than the rest. "These are going to be tough hours to fill, you know that?" There was a lot more to his words than what was on the surface.

"These are going to be tough hours to leave behind. I'll think of them a lot." She crossed to him and hugged him tightly. "Use my number, okay? I'm going to miss your tallness," she said.

"I always knew you'd find a way, Kate, and I can imagine how hard this probably is for you, but I think your mom would be proud. Just make sure you're happy."

With a "Merry Christmas" and an "I love you," she left the station for the house, where she and Rick had planned to meet to begin packing up her things for following day. He was parked out front when she pulled into the driveway, and they hadn't seen one another in nearly a week, his face the most welcome sight after such a bittersweet ending.

Before he said anything, he hugged her, knowing what it was she'd just said goodbye to and how important it was to her, and she melted into his embrace out there in the cold.

"I'm so glad you're here," she told him and he kissed her lips softly.

"How was it?"

"Good. It was hard, but good."

"I heard Dot's call," he said having listened to the show in his car. "It was sweet. Everyone's going to miss you, a lot, but, you'll still be close. You can come up whenever you want."

" _We_ can come up."

He lifted her hat away from her ear and whispered. "I love it when you pluralize your pronouns." She laughed against his neck and it warmed his skin deliciously. "Are you sure you're ready to do this, Kate? If you're not, it's okay, and I want you to tell me."

She pulled back and looked him in the eye, as much as she could beneath the dim light of the street. "I am ready. With you here, I am."

"Whatever you need, ask me, okay?"

"I will, and I love you," she said, and with that, the only person left to learn of what was to come was about to find out.


	18. Chapter 18

Theresa was sitting on the couch watching TV when Rick and Kate walked in, but Jim was not in his chair beside her. It'd been nearly two weeks since the car accident, and the soreness in his ribs had begun to subside, though his level of comfort in mobility continued to remain frustratingly limited.

"Well, hey there, lovebirds, how did everything go tonight?"

Rick put his arm around Kate's shoulder and kissed her on the head.

"It was good," Kate said. "Sad, too, but good. I've been doing it for so long, it's probably going to feel strange for a while not being there on Friday nights."

"Well, sweetie, I'm sure this creative man of yours, here, will be able to come up with something fun for the two of you to do, instead," Theresa replied with a wink in her words. Kate looked at Rick and his eyebrows danced suggestively. "Yeah, you'll be just fine. Oh, and I, um," she continued, her tone purposefully softer, "I grabbed you some boxes from the market today. I left them out in the trunk, obviously."

"Thanks, Aunt Theresa, I appreciate it. I'll go out and get them after. I think I want to try and organize some things, first, to make it easier."

"I have boxes in my trunk, too," Rick said. "I'll bring them all inside whenever you're ready."

Kate squeezed his hand. "Where's Dad?"

"He ate and then he went back upstairs to watch the Rangers game. I told him I'd rather watch paint dry than men on ice with tiny sticks. He wasn't amused."

"I am," Rick said. "I feel exactly the same way."

"Have you ever even watched a game of hockey in your entire life?" Kate asked him mockingly to an expression of shock at the mere question.

Theresa pushed off the couch and grabbed her mug. "I really like this one, Kate. You should hang on to him. I'm going to get another cup of tea. Anyone else?"

They both declined and she disappeared into the kitchen.

"Did you hear that?" he said with a nudge. "You should hang on to me."

"A man who has holes in his underwear, wears sneakers in snowstorms, and doesn't watch hockey? Gee, how could a gal possibly be so lucky?" Kate teased.

He leaned into her, studied her lips, then her eyes. "You know what your sarcasm does to me, yet there you go, taunting me with it when you know I can't do what I want to do about it. You're a cruel ex-radio star."

"Want an autograph, instead?"

"Is that a euphemism?"

She said three words to him, each punctuated with a kiss. "Help me pack."

 **xxxx**

About an hour into Kate's attempt at organizing her clothes and things, she heard Jim's bedroom door creak open. The sound was distinct, one she'd known since childhood, and she immediately stopped what she was doing and listened as he slowly made his way past her room and down the stairs.

"Was that your dad?" Rick asked and she nodded. "Are you going to go talk to him?"

"We're leaving in the morning. I have to." She folded the sweater in her hand into a neat square and set it atop the pile on the floor next to her.

"Hey." He tucked her hair behind her ear to better see her face. "You love him and he loves you. If you want me to come down, I'm here, okay?"

Kate got up and left the room without a word, her insides tumbling like waves, even more so than they had before she'd confronted him a couple of weeks earlier, because now it felt final. With his indifference, he'd already dashed any hope she'd managed to cling to that things could change, but she couldn't just go. She had to face him, to stand in the decision she'd made, the one she knew was the right one for her.

Theresa had already gone up to bed, and it was dark and quiet downstairs, except for the modest light above the stove in the kitchen, which helped to guide her way. That's where Kate found Jim, standing inside the open refrigerator door, pouring a glass of ginger ale.

"Feel okay, Dad?" she asked startling him with her unexpected presence.

"Christ, Katie, why are you sneaking up on me?" The bottle of soda nearly fell from his hand, but he was able to hang on, save for a splash or two. "The aspirin upsets my stomach."

She leaned back against the edge of the counter and grabbed the dish towel for something to fiddle with. "Hopefully you won't need to take it much longer. The doctor said it should just be a few weeks, and you're already moving around better." He downed what was in his glass before he added more and closed the refrigerator door. "Dad, I know it's late, but can we talk for a minute?"

"Is this going to be another talk like the last one, because it is late and I'm tired, among other things?"

Kate left it unanswered, because that moment was the only one she had left. "I'm leaving, Dad," she said.

"You're leaving what?"

"This house, Cornwall, I'm moving to the city." As soon as she said it, it was as though someone had pressed the slow motion button, because it felt like five minutes passed before she even saw him blink.

"The city," he said back to her. "What's in the city?"

"I'm going back to school to finish, so I can teach like I've always wanted to, and that's where Rick is. We're moving my things into his loft tomorrow."

"You're moving on Christmas weekend?" he asked like it was the most preposterous thing he'd ever heard.

"What difference does it make what weekend it is, Dad? We don't celebrate anything anymore, anyway, and that's not going to change any time soon, obviously. You've made that very clear."

He put his glass in the sink, still full. "What's to celebrate?" he said as he moved past her. "Good luck. Enjoy your Christmas."

Kate was a hundred things all at once. She felt anger and sadness and guilt and loneliness and fear, which were but a few, and for the second time in as many weeks, he'd walked away from her and left her alone with all of it.

"I heard his bedroom door shut," Rick said. She hadn't moved, the towel still held tight between her hands. "Is it okay that I came down?"

"Yeah," she replied with a discernible crack in her voice.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

She tossed the towel back onto the counter, the white of her knuckles subsiding. "I want to finish packing. Can we just do that?"

"I'll go get the boxes out of the car. I'll meet you upstairs and we'll get this done. Would you do one thing for me first, though?"

"What?"

"You know how much I love hearing you read. I want you to read me, the book of Rick Castle." The crinkle in her brow confirmed she hadn't a clue what he meant. "Open it and tell me what you see on the page."

"It says you're weird."

"What else?" He took a step towards her, his eyes locked on hers.

"That you love me."

"And that's just page one," he said.

 **xxxx**

Saturday, Christmas Eve, had been an early trip down to the loft with boxes in each of their cars, and then Kate had come back up to see Lanie and to get the few things that remained at the house. She'd been half-asleep following her shift, and Kate still had a long day ahead, so it'd been a brief visit, and a bittersweet one, at that, because though there was much happiness and much optimism about what lay ahead for Kate, the two hadn't gone without seeing each other at least once every week since they'd met, and that time together had been something they'd always treasured.

Back at the house, Kate had collected the last of the boxes and then spent some time alone in her mother's office, sitting in her bean bag chair and penning a letter to her father. So much of what she'd wanted to say to him the previous night hadn't found its way out, and more than wanting him to know, she'd needed him to know how much she loved him, despite all that'd brought her to that moment.

She'd made a final journey of the room with her eyes, set the letter on top of the broken picture frame on the desk, hoping he'd find it the next time he ventured inside, which, she knew well, he'd done at least once in the very recent past, and then she'd taken her mother's sweater off the back of the chair. That was to come with her-warmth to be transplanted.

The only thing left had been goodbye, and it'd felt as cold as the winter air.

She sat on the end of Rick's bed that night after a tiresome day of driving and hauling and unpacking, to say nothing of the emotional toll it'd taken, the sweater around her body, and she could smell the aroma of Christmas all around her. It was the evergreen scent of the Balsam fir he'd chosen and put on display, not surprisingly the largest she'd ever seen inside a home, and it'd permeated every room and filled them deliciously.

It'd been years since she and her father had had one up at the house for the holiday, and she'd almost forgotten how powerful the fragrance could be, how it could so quickly transport one from present to past, and in such nostalgic ways.

"Tomorrow, we'll do nothing all day except drink cocoa in our pajamas and watch Christmas movies, I promise," Rick said setting the mug of too hot tea he'd brought her on the bedside table.

"Tonight was great, Rick. It's been a long time since Christmas actually felt like Christmas for me, and I enjoyed being a part of your celebration. You guys sure do go all out."

Having taken a seat next to her, he leaned over and looked down at the floor. "You just liked the big, fuzzy socks I got you and, of course, gazing at me adoringly as I serenaded you with the entire Carpenters' holiday album."

"Is that what that was? Singing?" she cracked with a giggle. "And, yes, I like them a lot, thank you. With everything going on, though, I just, I hate that I don't have anything for you, yet."

Rick got up and closed the bedroom door. "Kate, having you here with me is everything I want. That's my present. I only need you." She crawled backwards on the bed until she reached the pillows and he climbed on beside her. "There's been something I've wanted to tell you about for a little while now, some news," he said as he slid his arm around her waist. "Unless you just want to sleep. I know it's been a very long day for you."

She rolled to face him, traced a fingertip across his lips. "I'm tired, but I don't want to sleep," she told him, it being the last thing on her mind on her first forever night in their bed.

"I know what I'm going to write, Kate. I told my publisher yesterday."

"You did? Why didn't you say anything?"

"Because it wasn't the right time with everything else going on, but tonight feels different." She kissed him excitedly and asked for more. "Well, it's an idea in progress, of course, but basically it's about an American woman who loses her mother and decides to go to Paris, where they'd always planned to travel together one day. She finds herself on one of their many lovely bridges early one morning, and while she's there, she spots a man, also alone, and she just walks right up to him and kisses him, _BAM!_ "

His voice had grown more animated with each passing word, and it was everything she could do not to laugh.

"Suddenly, there's a crack in the pre-dawn silence, the sound of bullets whizzing by, and the woman leaps over the side into the Seine, pulling this man right along with her."

"Okay, that sounded pretty familiar up until a point," Kate jumped in. "Is this book about me?"

A tiny squeak echoed in the hush. "Not exactly you, really, but if you're asking if you were my inspiration, if you helped pull me out of the fog I've been lost in for eight months and made me want to write again, then the answer is yes. That is what you've done for me, Kate, that and a million other things."

"So, what happens next?"

Rick set his hand on her hip and inched her closer. "What would you like to happen next?"

"I meant in the book, Romeo."

"Right, sorry, but prepare yourself because you're about to be spoiled: It turns out our American in mourning is actually part of some covert government something or other, and she knew precisely whom she was kissing. Now she has to get them both out of Paris and back to the US alive for something or other. She's going to be quite the badass heroine."

Kate slid her hand between their bodies and grazed him purposely. "You seem pretty excited about her and all her somethings or other," she said. "Should I be jealous?"

He pushed her over onto her back, his fingers sliding between hers on the pillow above her head. "Don't think I didn't catch that grammatical mastery you just hit me with, first of all. You know what a man likes." His tongue found that magic spot on her neck and he gave it due attention. "And that her isn't in our bed, is she?" She came for his lips, and he met her halfway.

"I love it when you pluralize your pronouns," she whispered, turning his once uttered line back around on him.

"I love it that you're here forever," he said.

 **xxxx**

Rick had set up a desk for her in the alcove of his office so she'd have, at least, a semi-private place to work and to study, and that's where he found her when he got out of bed that March morning, as he often did. He'd spent a late night working on rewrites of a chapter for his nearly completed novel, a meeting scheduled with his editor at 10AM, and Kate had been up early every day that week in advance of the due date of her final midterm paper.

She'd managed to enroll in some online classes through the CUNY for their spring term, not exactly what she'd hoped for, but it'd been the only option she'd had since she'd been so determined jump back in right away, given how soon after her move the school semester had been set to begin.

"Today's the day," he said of her deadline's arrival with a crack of fatigue, his fingers attempting to work a knot of stress free from her shoulder, and he couldn't possibly have known how prophetic his words would come to be. "Did you get it finished? Are you finally happy with it?"

Kate turned her head and kissed his hand. "I'm just going over it one last time, for about the tenth time. What time did you come to bed? I was so tired for working on this thing; I didn't even feel you climb in."

"It was late, after 2AM, but I got the chapter done, finally. Hey, how about tonight we rectify that 'I didn't even feel you' thing with some definitive…feeling?"

"I like that idea," she said. "There's coffee already made, by the way, if you want to grab some before you go."

"Thank you," he said with a yawn. "I think I'm just going to jump in the shower and pick up something on the way, though. I need to stop at Black Pawn before my meeting. They have some cover art options for me to look at."

"Okay, well, I'm sure this will come as no surprise, but I'll be right here, so come give me a kiss before you leave."

"Like I could have a morning without it. Get your lip gloss ready."

She continued to work on last minute adjustments to her assignment for most of the morning, her eyes blurry from reading the same sentences over and over again; that was until her phone rang, and assuming it was Rick coming from his editor's office, she answered it without examination, not that she would've recognized the number if she had.

"Katie," he said, and it was a voice she hadn't heard in longer than she'd ever imagined could be possible.

Her posture instantly changed, as did her heartrate.

"Dad?"

It'd been nearly four months since they'd spoken, four months of unanswered calls and unreturned messages, and there he now was, on the other end of the line, out of the blue.

"How are you, Katie?" he asked, and the sound of her name from his lips already had tears in her eyes. "How's life in the big city treating you?"

She was stunned, almost to the point of not being able to say anything at all. "Dad, I'm not…I'm sorry. I feel like I don't know what to say." There was silence, a silence teeming with unspoken words.

"I know, and that's okay. I can't blame you for that."

"I haven't heard from you, Dad." She got up out of her chair and began to pace the floor, from her desk to the bed and back again.

"I've been away, Katie, in a program. I still am. I haven't had my phone, not that that's an excuse."

She stopped abruptly, and thankfully the end of the bed was right behind her, because if it wasn't, she surely would've fallen to the ground.

"You're in a program? How? Where? Why didn't you tell me?" The tears finally began to crawl down her cheeks.

"The long answer is for another time, when we're together, face-to-face. The short answer is you, and the same place I was in before, just a longer stay this time. I have thirty-nine days, Katie."

He'd all but taken her breath away. "Is this really happening, Dad? Tell me this is really happening," she said not above a whisper. "I want to see you. Can I come up?"

"It really is, and I need to finish this, Katie. I need to finish this before I can do anything else or see anyone. When I do, I'll come straight to you, I promise. I just wanted to tell you how much I miss you and love you. There's so much I have to make up for, so many things I have to make right, and I'm here trying to start. Right now, I have to go, though, I'm sorry. I have to be in a group, but I'll call."

"Soon, okay? I love you," she said and he was gone again.

 **xxxx**

Still in her pajamas, Kate was curled up asleep on the bed when Rick got home, her phone clutched in her hand. She hadn't been able to stop crying, both from sadness and joy, the moments she'd shared with her father few yet staggering in their intensity, and she'd closed her eyes only to try to curb the flow of tears.

He softly kissed the exposed skin of her neck, not wanting to wake her, but finding it impossible to go without, and her eyes opened with his touch. They were puffy and pink, even then, after hours had passed, and everything around her appeared fuzzy, as though painted with a watercolor brush.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I couldn't help myself."

"What time is it?" She awkwardly pushed her body upright and he squeezed into the tiny space at the edge of the bed next to her. "I didn't send my paper. What time is it?" she asked again in a panic.

He brushed her cheek with the back of his hand. "It's okay. It's only 3:20PM. You have plenty of time. Why are your eyes…Were you crying, Kate?"

She looked down at her phone and then back up at him. "My dad called me. My dad called me today."

Rick, of course, given the clear signs that she'd been upset, immediately assumed the worst, that it'd been more of the same, that Jim had left her as he so often had, hurt.

"Are you okay? Jesus, I have a thousand questions and I don't know which to ask first."

"He said he's been in a program. He's still there."

Rick pulled his jacket off and threw it on the bed. "I'm, wow, okay. That wasn't at all what I expected to hear you say, but that's incredible, Kate. I'm so sorry I wasn't here when it happened. I don't know what I could've done, but just to be with you in that moment. That's a very big moment to have had alone."

"It's okay," she said and kissed his shoulder. "It almost didn't seem real. It's still hard to believe it actually happened. I must've looked at my call log twenty times afterwards."

"You know what? What did I tell you this morning? I said today was the day, and look what happened. Maybe I have, like, these untapped psychic powers. What do you think?"

Kate crooked her eyebrow. "If you're psychic, shouldn't you already know what I think?"

"Touché," he said. "I'm so happy for both of you, Kate, and this is so much better than my surprise, I'm not even sure I need to tell you now. Your day seems quite full, already."

"Surprise?" she asked with a huge grin, one that made her swollen eyes just about close.

"Okay, you twisted my arm. So, I didn't really go to Black Pawn today. I actually went to see my travel planner extraordinaire, and when your semester's over and after I've turned in the final chapter of my book, we're going back to Paris to celebrate, and for ten whole days." She practically jumped into his lap, her arms wrapped around his neck. "Amazing day more amazing?" he asked, already feeling the answer in her body.

"So much more."

"Yeah, I knew that."


	19. Chapter 19

It was just a week before they were set to leave for Paris, Kate with just two days remaining in her first semester back at school, and Rick with a freshly completed novel, his final chapter edit submitted the day prior, and they, along with Martha and Alexis, had just finished eating a celebratory dinner together at the loft, when Rick noticed he'd missed a call.

It was a New York phone number, but curious because he didn't immediately recognize it, he listened right away to the message that'd been left, and was rather shocked to find it'd been left by Jim Beckett.

Jim hadn't said much, merely asked Rick to call when he had a moment, and not to let Kate know about it. They'd never spoken on the phone before, or even one-on-one, for that matter, so, naturally, he was incredibly anxious to find out what was going on.

Offering word from his editor as an easy cover story, he excused himself from the table and went back into the office, shut the door behind him.

"Mr. Beckett, it's Rick Castle. I'm sorry I missed your call. We were just having dinner."

"My daughter lives with you, Rick. For starters, how about you start calling me Jim? And I appreciate you getting back to me, under the circumstances."

"What circumstances are those, Jim?" he asked trying out the new familiar form.

"The circumstances where I've been a real asshole to you, Rick. I certainly wouldn't blame you if I was the very last person you'd want to speak to."

Rick was somewhat taken aback by Jim's bluntness, but he certainly appreciated his level of self-awareness, because the truth was, he had been a real asshole. "Yeah, well, I think we both had a paddle in that boat, so, for now, why don't we just shake on it and go from there."

"Fair enough."

"You know, I'm sorry, Jim, but can I just ask how it is you got my number if Kate's not supposed to know we're talking?"

"I was a cop for a lot of years, Rick."

Foreseeing potentially embarrassing territory ahead, Rick opted not to take it any further. "Say no more. Please, say no more."

"The reason for my call, and why I called you instead of Katie, is because I'm leaving here on Wednesday and heading back home. I'd like to come see her, but I thought it might make a nice surprise. I know she's been working really hard. I figured you'd probably be the best person to talk to about how I might make something like that work."

The wheels in Rick's brain immediately began to turn. "I think that's a fine idea, Jim. I know how anxious she is to see you, and who doesn't like a good surprise, right?"

Their reunion had to be special, worthy of the long and difficult road traveled to reach that point, and the fortuitous timing of it all gave Rick a thought, a very big thought. Paris was just days away, but with some help, he might just be able to pull it off.

"It doesn't have to be a big thing, Rick, just maybe a coordination of time and place?"

Jim had no idea whom he was talking to. Rick Castle was the king of big things.

"Go with me on this for a minute, Jim. I do have an idea, but answer me these questions: One, do you have a passport, and two, if so, can you call me back as soon as you get home on Wednesday?"

 **xxxx**

It had all been arranged. Rick had put Jim in touch with his miracle worker of travel planning and she'd come through in remarkable fashion, putting together an itinerary, on Rick's dime, that would get him into Paris on the Sunday following Rick and Kate's arrival and back out the following day. It would be over in the blink of an eye, but it was all the time Jim had been able to give, because he already had an appointment scheduled with a therapist, and efforts critical to his recovery would, for the foreseeable future, have to come first.

Rick and Kate flew out early that Saturday morning-a commercial flight, albeit first class, without benefit of their previous means that time around-and, when they got in, they hopped in a taxi up to Montmartre straight away.

He'd chosen to rent them a house for their stay, rather than book a hotel, because in addition to the added privacy he knew it would afford them, from his own experience, being able to live like a local, even for a short period of time, only served to enhance the appreciation of a city, and he wanted that for Kate with Paris.

Beneath a soft rain that evening, their taxi turned and pulled up the hill to the house, which was situated just off the end of a quiet street. Even from the outside, it appeared far larger than just the two of them would require, but Rick had heard that it'd often been rented out to famous musicians passing through on tour, and for him, cool was cool and the best was the best.

The owner's agent had turned the lights on inside for them in anticipation of their arrival, and with his hands occupied by their suitcases, he late Kate do the front door honors and enter the necessary code. They stepped inside to a wide open living space, modern and minimal in its decoration, the view clear from where they stood right through to the center courtyard, which housed a small garden.

"Rick, this house is huge. What are we supposed to do with all of this space?" Kate asked as she wiped away the speckles of rain that'd landed on her cheeks.

He set their bags down and came up behind her. "Is this you asking me to try to come up with something, because standing here I just thought of at least sixteen things?" His fingers gathered the hair draped across her neck aside and he kissed her skin until she let the weight of her body settle against his.

"All ours for ten whole days," she said with unreserved pleasure. "Think of all the trouble you could get yourself into."

His hands dipped to her hips and spun her around. "You love me and my trouble and you know it."

"You and your big trouble," she teased, her whole manner brimming with suggestion. "So, since you bought me a fancy plane ticket and rented me an estate, apparently, how about you let me buy you some wine and cheese." She arched onto her tiptoes and softly kissed his lips. "And when we get back, we can do number seven on your list-maybe twice."

"Number seven's my favorite."

"Yeah, imagine that. Hey, I know it's still raining, but is it okay if we walk?"

"I wouldn't have it any other way. You know, I've always thought you had a dash of Audrey Hepburn in you. Maybe while we're out there, we have us a little _Breakfast at Tiffany's_ moment, if you know what I mean," he said with a waggle of his brow.

"If you stop doing that creepy thing with your eyebrows, I might consider it."

 **xxxx**

The second thing Rick did on Sunday morning was take Kate shopping. The first involved her body, his tongue, and the shower, and if they hadn't been at the mercy of that day's grand, secret agenda, he never would've even suggested they venture beyond the bedroom door.

He'd arranged for them all to meet at the Pont des Arts at noon, the two of them and Jim, unbeknownst to Kate, of course, who'd spoken to her father before they'd left New York and set a plan for them to get together upon her return. The trip to Avenue Montaigne beforehand was in preparation for their evening and a dinner she believed only for two, the necessary attire beyond anything they'd brought along with them from home-again, part of Rick's plan.

He picked out a suit and she a dress, though neither saw that of the other, because Rick, with his own reasons and to a perplexed-but-not-surprised Kate, suggested they make the evening's reveal an event. From the shops, they rode the Metro out to the bridge, the skies a stunning blue in the wake of the rain they'd arrived to.

The site was buzzing with tourists and locals out enjoying the day's weather, far different from the peaceful calm of their visit there months before, and they strolled along the fence, hand in hand, in search of the token they'd left behind.

"We put it somewhere towards the bottom. I remember that much," Rick said offering little in the way of help. When Kate crouched to get a better look at an area she thought she recognized, Rick scoured the crowd of passersby for any sign of Jim. He'd given him a direction, landmarks to use so he could more easily be found-mid-bridge, a bench, a lamppost-but with Kate by his side, it was difficult to remain inconspicuous in his effort.

"I found it!" Kate called out after a few minutes went by, but Rick was too intently looking at faces to hear her. "Rick, hey," she said again, but still he gave nothing, because at the very same moment, Jim finally came into his view, and his excitement truly took hold.

She finally just pinched him on the arm to get his attention. "Too busy ogling beautiful French women to listen to me?" she asked, not at all serious.

"No, I am not, and ouch, why did you pinch me?"

"Because I was trying to talk to you, to tell you I found our lock, and you were ignoring me, that's why." She smiled and he gave her a peck on the cheek.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to ignore you. How about you let me make it up to you?"

"I don't know. That dress you bought me might have you covered for a while, but out of curiosity, what were you thinkin'?"

Rick turned and looked over his shoulder. "Remember that couple that was here last time, the one that was kissing beneath the lamppost over there?"

She hooked her arm around his. "I do."

"Well, I left something for you over there, a little present. You should go grab it before someone else takes it." She was so adorably confused, he could hardly contain himself. "Go on, I'll be right behind you."

Kate went because she knew she had no choice, not with him, weaving in and around folks passing in both directions on her way to the other side. It was there, when she got within a few steps of her target, that she found her father waiting.

 **xxxx**

Everything about Paris felt like an exquisite dream, and Kate imagined no matter how much time she spent there, that feeling would never go away. She blinked her eyes a few times in rapid succession, certain she'd find herself still in bed with Rick beside her, because how could it possibly be that her father was standing two feet in front of her on a bridge on a Sunday afternoon in France? Surely that was an impossibility.

"Hi, Katie," Jim said as Rick's hand found the small of her back. "Rick."

She looked back at Rick before she moved another step, and he could see the glistening of tears in her eyes. He leaned in for her ear and whispered. "How's that for making it up to you?" Her fingers clutched at the denim covering his thigh, and in her grip he understood the power of his plan's triumph.

Kate took the few remaining steps towards Jim and he opened his arms to her, her body crashing into his as it once had, like a child at play. "I've missed you so much," she told him without relinquishing her hold. "I can't believe this is real. I can't believe you're here."

With one arm around her, Jim reached out with the other and shook Rick's hand. "I was just planning to take the train down to the city. Rick put me on a plane, instead. I still don't know how he managed to pull it all together so quickly."

"He had very good help," Rick replied when Kate finally let go and came for him, her mouth capturing his in a heated kiss, one that put to shame what they'd witnessed on that spot in the fall. The garment bags that held their fineries fell from his hand and he hummed against her lips. "I think she likes the surprise," he said pulling back and bending for what he'd dropped.

Kate hugged her father again. "No, she loves the surprise. Dad, you look…"

"Yeah, I have a few extra pounds on me, I know."

"Stop, I wasn't going to say that. I was going to say you look like my dad." He took her hand. "God, my head is so jumbled right now, I can't even talk."

"Welcome to a writer's world," Rick interjected.

"It's okay, Katie," Jim said. "There's a lot to be said, and this isn't the place for most of it. When everybody's back home, we'll make the time." He took a quick glance at his watch. "Listen, I'm sorry to do this so suddenly, but I was able to find an English-speaking meeting to go to here in the city, but it starts in an hour. Do you guys mind if I take off for a bit and meet you later?"

Kate turned to Rick. "Of course, yeah, I'll email you the address of the house in case you want to come up and check it out, and I'll send the restaurant info, too, if you'd rather just meet us there. Our reservation's at 8PM, and it's fairly close to your hotel, if I remember correctly, so you should easily be able to walk over."

Jim shook his hand for the second time. "Thank you, Rick, for all of this, and for making my daughter so happy when I couldn't."

"I assure you, Jim, it's been the greatest pleasure of my life."

"All right, you two, I'm going to go try to not get lost in this place. Wish me luck. Katie," he said hugging her again, "you look beautiful, just like your mother, and seeing you smile means everything right now."

"Love you, Dad. Call if you need anything and we'll see you later."

"Later," he said and he stepped back into the Sunday crowd.

 **xxxx**

It was floating up on the breeze from somewhere down the hill below them, the soft echo of piano keys being danced upon by enviably adept fingers, their bodies, still clothed in their dinner ensembles, stretched out together on a lounge in the house's courtyard.

Jim's flight out in the morning was an early one, so he'd returned to his hotel after they'd eaten, leaving the two to bring the evening to a close on their own. It'd been a lovely collection hours spent together, filled with family stories Rick might never have heard without benefit of Jim's return, and being by Kate's side as she'd enjoyed her father for the first time in so long had been a gift unlike anything he'd thought possible.

"I hate to talk over this perfect soundtrack for our evening, but I still can't get over how incredible you look in this dress. I may never, to be honest."

That was a thing she'd never get over. The way he looked at her. The way his voice sounded when he spoke of her. Never was it simply words.

"Well, you mentioned her yesterday, so I figured I'd try to embrace my dash of inner Audrey, though, honestly, I'm not sure I really see it."

She'd worn her hair pulled up, and he pressed his lips against her neck. "You don't see yourself like I see you. That's a hard thing for most people, actually, but it doesn't mean I'm going to stop trying."

Kate was settled between his legs with a hand on each of his knees, her body moving with the rise and fall of his chest. " _I_ still can't get over that you remembered the blue pinstripe suit thing. Guess I should be careful what I say around you. Who knows when it might be used against me later on?"

"Fair warning, Ms. Beckett: If what you say to me has anything to do with something that might even possibly turn you on, just assume it's going to be remembered. And used against you. Emphasis on against you." Kate playfully smacked his leg. "Hey, did you have fun tonight? I must admit I did have a twinge of doubt about doing this, but it didn't really hit me until after everything was already set up, so there wasn't any turning back at that point."

"Doubt about what? About bringing my dad here?"

"Yeah, I mean, I suddenly began to worry that I'd assumed everything would be smiles and laughs and fun when it could very well not be that at all. I just wondered if I'd overstepped." She used his body as leverage to pull hers up and she set her bare feet on the cobblestone. "Where are you going?"

Kate held out a hand. "I want you to dance with me. We shouldn't let our soundtrack go to waste."

"Ooh, maybe they'll play "Moon River" next." He pushed up off the lounge and hugged her into his body. "This is our first dance, you know. I hope my palms don't get all sweaty; you are the prettiest girl in the class."

They moved together slowly, within the single rectangular box of light that spilled across the ground from inside and surrounded them. "And you're the most generous boy. Rick, what you did was one of the most extraordinary things anyone has ever done for me, and I know people throw words like that around all the time, but I truly mean every one, and I continue to be amazed by the man you are."

Rick kissed her forehead and pulled her in tight. "It's you. It's because of you. I want to be the kind of man you deserve, and I understand the whole fate thing is difficult for you, but I think about it all the time, Kate, about how I found you. If I'd filled up the car with gas in the city that morning, or dropped Alexis off on a Sunday instead of a Saturday, or parked illegally on a different street, it's just, how could I not believe you were supposed to happen to me?"

"I couldn't believe you walked into my shop," she said with a giggle. "When you left, I actually remember I grabbed my phone to call my mom and tell her. She was the only one who would've understood how excited I was, and I got so angry because she couldn't."

"What do you think she would've said?"

With a smile, she answered. "She probably would've told me to run down the sidewalk after you and keep you occupied until she could get there. She was such a sucker for airport paperbacks."

"Just for that, no number fourteen for you tonight."

Though he couldn't see it, she bit coyly at her lower lip. "You realize that means you won't be enjoying number fourteen either, right?"

"That is an excellent point. Note to self: Work on repercussion banter."

Kate released her hold on him and reached down for her discarded shoes. "Music stopped, Fred Astaire. That's our cue." Step by tiny step, she backed towards the house, waiting for him to follow.

Rick watched the silhouette of her form against the light in stunned silence. It was how she always left him, in a state of wonderment, positively overcome by the depth of his adoration of her.

The past year had been both one of the worst and one of the best of his life, and he'd learned more from her about his capacity to love than he had from anyone or anything since Alexis had been born. Fate or something other, he might never be entirely certain, but she was there and she was the most real character in a story he'd never imagined.

She stopped in the doorway and let him catch up to her, and he kissed her there as he'd never kissed her anywhere before, because what he suddenly knew was that night, that moment, would be for him as no other ever had been.

"What was that for?" she asked, and entirely without complaint.

"That was for love."

She leaned in and kissed him again, softer. "You're especially romantic in this city, Mr. Castle, you know that?"

He wrapped his arms around her waist, lifted her off the ground, and carried her into the house. "Want to do this with me every year?"

"What, come to Paris?"

"That too," he said.

 _XXXX_

 **Parting thoughts -** Inspiration often takes many different forms, and, for me, this time around, aside from the immeasurable love I have for the two characters upon which this incarnation was based and some encouragement from a lovely reader, I also owe a tremendous debt of thanks to a favorite song. Hundreds of times I listened to its words as I wrote this piece, and their haunting beauty never waned. If you've never experienced Madonna's "Mer Girl," I hope these words bring you to it, and I hope you find something there that inspires you, as well.

Please know your indulgence and your kindness move me, always.

From that KB, the most extraordinary, and from this KB, me, the most grateful, "Thank you for being there."

~K


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